STAT3 and familial pancreatic carcinoma: Among the inhibited upstream transcriptors are important tumor suppressor genes, such as TP53, CDKN2A and RB1. On the other hand, the activated upstream regulators mostly are signal transducers that play critical roles in inflammatory or immune response and tumorigenesis, e.g. STAT3, CTNNB1, SP1, and NFκB etc. Notably, two pancreatic cancer susceptibility genes previously identified by genome wide association studies, i.e. NR5A2 (nuclear receptor group 5A member 2) [17] and HNF1A (hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 homeobox A) [18], were among the inhibited upstream transcription regulators.