YBX1 and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: Upon nuclear translocation, which is believed to be mediated by Akt and Erk through phosphorylation (Coles et al, 2005; Sutherland et al, 2005), YB-1 regulates the transcription activity by binding to gene promoter regions containing the Y-box motif, and among others, YB-1 thus may activate gene expression of the EGFR (Stratford et al, 2007), matrix metalloproteinase 2 (Mertens et al, 1997), and MET (Finkbeiner et al, 2009), which are associated with tumour cell adhesion, invasion and metastasis in HNSCC.