This research followed the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and all samples were obtained after patients provided informed consent. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board of Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The dissociated cells from the samples of nonsmall cell lung cancer patients (Table 1 ) and the lung cancer (LC) cell lines were labeled with 1 mL CD133/l micromagnetic beads per 1 million cells using the CD133 cell isolation kit (Miltenyi Biotech, Auburn, CA). CD133 + cells were cultured in a medium consisting of serum-free DMEM/F12 (Gibco-BRL, Gaithersburg, MD), N2 supplement (R&D Systems Inc., Minneapolis), 10 ng/ml human recombinant bFGF (R&D Systems) and 10 ng/ml EGF (R&D Systems) [28] .