Results from the present study suggest a significant downregulation of pro-apoptotic proteins - CKMT1, GAPDH and CA1 and upregulation of anti-apoptotic proteins – SERPIN (A1, B3, B5), YWHAZ, PSME1 and TXN in tongue cancer samples as compared to matched normal samples suggest their role in cell survival during tumorigenesis. Here, YWHAZ is linked to tongue cancer.