BIRC5 and cancer: As a marker of apoptosis, genes and proteins which are known to induce apoptosis in cancer cells (Bax, Bak, Bad, Apaf-1; Fas, FasL and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)) are upregulated while those associated with cell survival (Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, survivin) are suppressed [24,35,40,42,47,49,55,56,57,58,59,61,63].