AKT1 and liver cancer: Ding et al., Zhai et al., and Liu et al. found that the expression of APPL1 was upregulated in breast cancer (MCF-7) and liver cancer cells (HepG2), and they verified that APPL1 could promote the proliferation and migration of tumor cells via leptin-mediated phosphorylation of STAT3, ERK1/2, and AKT, which could explain the relevant mechanisms [31–33].