AKT1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: After metformin intervention, HCC cells grown on different-stiffness substrates had no significant change in expression of integrin β1 (Figure 4C i, ii) but exhibited a more obvious decrease in Akt phosphorylation in HCC cells grown on a lower-stiffness substrate compared with the cells grown on a higher-stiffness substrate (Figure 4D i, ii).