The cell death is triggered through activation of apoptotic pathways, however, HCMV infection increased cell survival via significantly enhancing the expression of anti-apoptotic genes such as bcl2, birc3 and prkce, compared with mock infection (Figure 1g), indicating that HCMV infection protects cells from apoptosis and promotes cell survival. Here, BCL2 is linked to cytomegalovirus infection.