Furthermore, we provide evidence that the soluble ectodomain EpEX, which is produced upon RIP of EpCAM [39,48,110] including HNSCC cell lines (Fig 3), is a regulatory ligand of EGFR that induces ERK1/2 and AKT signaling (Fig 9). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.