AKT1 and lung cancer: Molecular mechanism results showed that 8-cetylBerberine treatment downregulated the intracellular levels of an active form of phosphorylated-Akt and PI3K, while increasing the protein expression of Cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21 and p27, suggesting the inhibitory effect of 8-cetylBerberine on the PI3K-Akt signal pathway to induce apoptosis and antiproliferation in lung cancer cells.