Expression studies of core stemness as well as epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related transcriptional regulators that are involved in the development and progression of cancer, including lung cancer - NANOG, OCT4, SOX2, SOX9, MYC, HOXA5, FOXO1, FOXC2, SNAIL1, SNAIL2, ZEB1, ZEB2, TWIST1, and TWIST2, revealed that the cells were differently positive for these stemness- and EMT-related transcription factors (Figure 1B). Here, SOX2 is linked to cancer.