AKT1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Our previous studies showed that ATRA can induce differentiation of HCC tumor-initiating cells (TICs) via the tumor sclerosis compound 2 (TSC2)/protein kinase B (AKT) pathway and combined treatment with ATRA and that cisplatin improves the therapeutic effect, due to elimination of TICs via ATRA-induced differentiation, in vivo and in vitro [16, 17].