Liu et al. (2017) found that in head and neck cancer, sophocarpine upregulated E-cadherin expression (epithelial marker) and decreased vimentin expression (mesenchymal marker). Yang, Wen & Zhao (2021) demonstrated that in colon cancer cells, sophocarpine reversed the EMT process by upregulating the expression of E-cadherin and downregulating the expression of N-cadherin and vimentin. Here, CDH2 is linked to head and neck cancer.