AKT1 and cancer: MiR-760 is observed to regulate cancer progression via PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK pathways (25, 27, 28), and the latter pathways are closely implicated in NSCLC progression and stemness (29–32); thus, we further detected the PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK pathways, which found that circ_0008594 knockdown inactivated the PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK pathways in both H23 and H460 cells, while miR-760 knockdown showed the opposite effect (all P<0.05, Figures 6A–D).