Fig. 1

The upregulation of ubiquitin-specific protease 14 predicts poor clinical outcomes in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma. A–D USP14 expression of patients with OSCC from the TCGA database. USP14 was aberrantly overexpressed in OSCC tumor tissues compared to normal tissues (A). USP14 expression in OSCC was higher than that in matched normal samples (B). Upregulated expression of USP14 was significantly associated with T stage (C) and N stage (D). E–G Overall survival (OS), progress free interval (PFI) and disease specific survival (DSS) based on USP14 expression in OSCC (TCGA). USP14 high (red) group corresponds to the fourth quartile of expression, while USP14 low (blue) group corresponds to the first quartile. H The protein levels of USP14 in four OSCC cell lines were compared with a normal oral epithelial cell line HOK by Western blotting analysis. I The expression pattern of USP14 was examined in OSCC tissues and their adjacent normal epithelial tissues by immunohistochemical staining (n = 70). *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001