The knockdown of NANOG in the cisplatin-resistant tumor cells led to a significant decrease in autophagosome abundance, EGF secretion and the level of pEGFR (Fig. 3c and Supplementary Fig. 7b), suggesting an important role of NANOG in regulating the autophagy-mediated EGFR activation of cisplatin-resistant tumor cells. This evidence concerns the gene NANOG and neoplasm.