PAK1 and breast cancer: To evaluate whether transient expression PAK1 and Stat3 results in an increase in endogenous IL-6 gene expression, RT-qPCR of the IL-6 gene was performed by using total RNAs derived from breast cancer cells transfected with pPAK1 (1 μg), pStat3 (1 μg), and pPAK1 plus pStat3 using the pcDNA3.1 vector as an internal control.