Fig. 2.

Western blot analysis confirmed higher levels of expression of specific proteins. Western blotting was performed to evaluate the levels of expression and activation status of p38, p-p38, MK2, p-MK2, HuR, p-HuR, CEBPδ, p-CEBPδ, AUF1, p-AUF1, CUGBP1 and TTP proteins in extracts prepared from: a Human clinical surgical samples and normal adjacent controls; b Human HNSCC cell lines (FaDu, A-253 and CAL27) and normal human cell lines of head and neck region (HEPM and Hs680.Tr). We observed higher expression levels and activation status of these proteins in tumor samples and HNSCC cells as compared with normal control samples and cell lines. β tubulin served as a loading control. The graphs represent change in protein expression/activation calculated as a ratio (arbitrary units). The results are expressed as means±standard errors of the mean, n = 3. α, p < 0.05; αα, p < 0.01; ααα, p < 0.001 represent the statistical significance of protein expression in tumor tissue 1 compared with normal control 1; and β, p < 0.05 represents the statistical significance of tumor tissue 2 compared with normal control 2; and γ, p < 0.05; γγ, p < 0.01; γγγ, p < 0.001 represent the statistical significance of tumor tissue 3 compared with normal control 3; and δδδ, p < 0.001 represent the statistical significance of tumor tissue 4 compared with normal control 4 and θθθθ, p < 0.0001 represent the statistical significance of tumor tissue 5 compared with normal control 5. Similarly, *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001 and ****, p < 0.0001 represent the statistical significance of protein expression in human HNSCC cell lines compared to HEPM while #, p < 0.05; ##, p < 0.01; ###, p < 0.001 and ####, p < 0.0001 represent the statistical significance of human HNSCC cell lines compared to Hs680.Tr