SOX2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Western blot analysis showed that ITGB4 overexpression downregulated the epithelial marker E-cadherin and upregulated the mesenchymal markers N-cadherin and vimentin in parallel with the activation of p-AKT and upregulation of Slug, Sox2 and Nanog in Bel-7402 or SMMC-77721 cells, and a contrary results exhibited in the MHCC-97H and MHCC-LM3 cells with the silencing of ITGB4 (Fig. 3E–H), indicating that ITGB4 induces EMT by upregulating Slug and other components of the ITGB4/Slug functional interaction in HCC cells.