1. To determine ADAM9, p-EGFRtyr1173/1068/1092 and p-Aktser473 protein expression by immunohistochemistry using their specific antibodies in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections of OSCC and normal oral tissues.
3. To compare the expression of ADAM9, p-EGFRtyr1173/1068/1092 and p-Aktser473 between OSCC and normal oral tissues.
3. To find the correlations for the expression of ADAM9, p-EGFRtyr1173/1068/1092 and p-Aktser473 with different histopathological grading of OSCC, including well-, moderately- and poorly-differentiated and those for the expression of these three molecules in the same OSCC and normal tissues.
4. To examine ADAM9, p-EGFRtyr1173/1068/1092 and p-Aktser473 expression in vitro by investigating their protein expression in OSCC cell lines and compare with that in normal oral epithelial cells by immunoblotting.
5. To investigate membrane-bound expression of ADAM9 and p-EGFRtyr1173/1068/1092 and cytoplasmic expression of p-Aktser473 in OSCC cell lines and compare with that in normal oral epithelial cells by flow cytometry.
6. To determine the inhibitory effect of cell transfection with short interference RNA (siRNA) specific for ADAM9 in OSCC cell lines on phosphorylation of EGFR at the tyrosine residues and of Akt at the serine 473 residue by immunoblotting analysis and/or flow cytometry.
7. To investigate the blocking effect on cancer cell aggressiveness in ADAM9-siRNA-transfected-OSCC cell lines using the migration and the invasion assays.
