ATRA partially reversed glioma sphere growth in stem-like cancer cells and promoted differentiation in U87MG-SLC cells.NSPc1 knockdown resulted in impaired neurospheres’ formation, self-renewal abilities, and the downregulation of stemness markers CD133 and Sox2 NSPc1 epigenetically repressed the expression of RDH16 by directly binding to the RDH16 promoter. This evidence concerns the gene SOX2 and central nervous system cancer.