The Stat family in cytokine signaling

During the past few years studies from several laboratories have utilized g ene disruption approaches to define the function of members of the Stat fam ily of transcription factors. The results have demonstrated that each famil y member has unique, critical, non-redundant functions in signal transducti on through members of the cytokine receptor superfamily. Many of the family members mediate functions associated with innate or acquired immunity. Wit h the availability of mice deficient in one or more of the Stats, critical experiments are possible to evaluate the roles of Slat signal transduction pathways in cellular transformation as well as evaluating their specific ro les in a range of cellular responses to cytokines.