PIEZO1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: So, we further detected the expression of key members of the TGF-β signaling pathway in Piezo1 manipulated HCC cells, the result showed that in shPiezo1 cells, the protein levels of AKT, p-AKT, ERK, p-ERK and smad2/3 had no significant difference, only phosphorylated-smad2/3 was down-regulated in Piezo1 knockdown cells (Fig. 5B), which indicated the canonical TGF-β signaling.