Figure 1

VEGF positive carcinoma tissues were stained with pAkt antibodies. Blocking peptides were used to test the efficacy of the antibodies and were tested on duplicate sections of those that had been highly stained for pAkt S473 and pAkt T308 using the antibodies alone. These were used as negative controls. Normal tissues were also used as negative controls, where no staining was observed. All the representative images were taken at x200 magnification except for those stained for pAkt T308, which were taken at x100. (A) pAkt S473 and pAkt T308 showed more intense staining in HNSCC tissues compared to normal tissues (P < 0.05). (B) Phosphorylation of Akt at residue T308 was found to be significantly higher in HNSCC patient samples compared to phosphorylation at S473 (P < 0.001). (C) Phosphorylation status of Akt in non-tumor part of cancer tissues. Very weak or no phosphorylation of Akt at both T308 and S473 was observed in the non-tumor part of HNSCC tissues. The arrow indicates the non-tumor area of the tissues. Images were captured at x200 magnification.