Since, in general, BCL6 is an anti-apoptotic protein and a transcriptional regulator of TP53 (Phan and Dalla-Favera 2004), this may represent one modality that contributes to a pro-survival phenotype following anti-CD180 or anti-CD150 treatment of  CLL cells. Here, SLAMF1 is linked to B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia.