AKT1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Therefore, we established CTHRC1 knockdown cells by lentiviral delivery of CTHRC1 shRNA into metastasis-prone HCC cells (SH-J1) which express high levels of CTHRC1 and examined the Akt/ERK/CREB pathway.CTHRC1 knockdown inhibited activations of CREB, Akt, and ERK1/2, in comparison to parent and non-target cells (Figure 5A).