CXCR4 and oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma: Onoue et al. performed a study on the effect of chemokines on EMT and demonstrated that a stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1)/CXCR4 system can facilitate lymph node metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) [26]: SDF-1/CXCR4, via the activation of Phosphoinositide 3-kinase-protein kinase B (PI3K-Akt/PKB) pathway, was associated with the loss of epithelial cell morphology alongside the downregulation of epithelial markers, cytokeratin, E-cadherin, and beta-catenin and the upregulation of mesenchymal markers, vimentin, and Snail [26].