Whole cells were lysed in RIPA buffer and protein concentration was determined using the DC protein assay kit II (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.). A total of 30 µg protein extract was separated by 10% SDS-PAGE and transferred to a polyvinylidene fluoride membrane. After being blocked by 5% non-fat milk at RT for 1 h, the membranes were incubated with the following primary antibodies diluted at 1:1,000: L1CAM (cat. no. SC-53386; Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc.), E-cadherin (cat. no. BD610181; BD Biosciences), N-cadherin (cat. no. BD610920; BD Biosciences), vimentin (cat. no. BD550513; BD Biosciences), Snail (cat. no. CST3879; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.), Slug (cat. no. CST9585; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.), Twist (cat. no. SC-81417; Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc.), AKT (cat. no. CST9272; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.), p-AKT (cat. no. CST9271; Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.), and β-actin (cat. no. SC-47778; Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc.). After incubation with goat anti-rabbit (1:3,000; cat. no. GTX213110-01; GeneTex, Inc.) or anti-mouse secondary antibody (1:3,000; cat. no. GTX213111-01; GeneTex, Inc.) at RT for 2 h, the proteins were identified by SuperSignal West Pico Chemiluminescent Substrate (cat. no. SC-2048; Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc.), and immunoreactive bands were visualized using ImageQuant LAS 500 (Cytiva). Densitometric analysis of western blot bands was carried out using ImageJ software (version 1.51 k; National Institutes of Health).