Kim et al. found that Bcl-2 was highly expressed in the gastrointestinal tumors.24 As apoptosis was inhibited, the cancer growth increased, resulting in poor prognosis and poor response to the treatment.25 We found in the present study that bcl-2 and bcl-XL were down-regulated in the CD90+ HepG2 cells. The gene discussed is BCL2L1; the disease is cancer.