These characteristics include increased expression of genes involved in development and maintenance of stem cells, increased self-renewal and maintenance of cell differentiation capacity after prolonged culture, increased sphere formation ability (also observed in CD24+ cells isolated from the NPC cell lines HK1 and TW076; see Figure S1), increased Hoechst 33342 dye exclusion and chemoresistance, increased ability to initiate tumors in immunocompromised mice, and enhanced cell invasion. Here, CD24 is linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma.