AKT1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To investigate whether catechol antagonizes against activations of EGFR, AKT, and ERK by EGF, HCC cells were pretreated with catechol 5 and 10 μM for 2 h in prior to stimulated with 100 ng/mL of EGF for 1 h, and p-EGFR, p-AKT, and p-ERK were detected by Western blotting and densitometric analysis.