In a 96-well opaque plate (BD, Falcon, NJ), 2 × 104 GTM3 cells were transfected with 100 ng GRE reporter plasmid (Cignal CCS-006L; SA Biosciences) and 0.6 μL transfection reagent (Surefect; SA Biosciences) with or without 100 ng empty vector/pCMV6-XL5, SFRS3/pCMV6-XL5, SFRS5/pCMV6-XL5, or SFRS9/pCMV6-XL5 vectors or 100 nM siRNA against SFRS 3, 5, or 9 (Dharmacon, Lafayette, CO). For experiments to study the effect of bombesin on DEX activity, cells transfected with GRE reporter plasmid were treated with or without different doses of bombesin for 24 hours. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were treated with or without 100 nM DEX (in ethanol) in DMEM (Invitrogen) containing 10% fetal bovine serum (Invitrogen), 1% penicillin + streptomycin and 2 mM glutamine (Thermoscientific, Rockford, IL). Six hours later, substrate (Dual-Glow; Promega, San Luis Obispo, CA) was added to each well, and the signal was detected with a plate reader (M200; Tecan, Durham, NC). Firefly luciferase activity was normalized to renilla luciferase activity. Experiments were performed in quintuplets (n = 5).