SOX2 and cancer: Although SOX2 is also known to maintain a cell proliferation capacity in PDAC cells [45] and a coordinated gene expression of both, NES and SOX2, is needed to promote cancer cell proliferation and survival [54, 77], SOX2 KD as well as KD of both NES/SOX2 had only marginal effects causing slightly decreased cell numbers in Panc89 cell variants.