PDK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Our data indicating that the aberrant expression of PDK1 characterizes poorly differentiated aggressive HCC cells is of translational relevance, considering that PDK1 facilitates the phosphorylation of its protein substrates, and phosphorylation has been shown to modulate the maintenance or repression of pluripotency, which is the ability of individual cells to differentiate into any somatic cell lineage [26,27].