Stimuli from ischemic stroke, cerebral trauma or epilepsy triggers inhibitor kappa B kinase (IKK) activation and induces phosphorylation and degradation of IκB protein, which leads to nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65/p50 and activation of NF-κB target genes (Inta et al., 2006; Yenari and Han, 2006; Yang et al., 2007). The gene discussed is NFKB1; the disease is ischemic stroke.