SNAI1 and nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Consistent with such a phenotypic change, a western blot assay revealed that exogenous TGF-β attenuated miR-296-5p-mediated upregulation of the epithelial marker E-cadherin but robustly reversed the miR-296-5p-mediated downregulation of N-cadherin, β-catenin, Snail, and Twist in NPC cells (Fig. 5c, d).