Yoshikawa et al. (2015) showed that the ATF6 pathway participates in the early stage of ischemia, promotes the survival of neurons and glial cells, and plays a protective role in ischemic stroke. Gharibani et al. (2013) also proved that XBP1 might play a protective role by increasing the Bcl-2/Bax ratio and downregulating Caspase-3 expression in vitro during ischemia/reperfusion injury. The gene discussed is ATF6; the disease is ischemia.