Pavón MA, et al. - In patients with head and neck cancer, molecular markers predictive of clinical outcome were determined based on the expression profile of cells showing epithelial-like (EL) or mesenchymal-like (ML) phenotypes. The association between EL and ML cells and migration, drug resistance, or tumor growth was analyzed. To cisplatin and cetuximab, EL cells were sensitive, and in mouse, EL cells showed low migration, and generated squamous differentiated tumors. Using a differential 93-gene expression signature between ML and EL cells, three-gene (EFS, GPX2, and SPRR1A) survival model was built by analyzing the RNA-seq data of the TCGA-HNSC project. Observations suggest that clinical outcome among subtypes sharing an EL phenotype could be distinguished using EFS, GPX2, and SPRR1A as prognostic markers.