Furthermore, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a key role in tumor progression and metastasis and recent studies reported that ASPH functioned as a stimulator of EMT through interacting with vimentin, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT) signaling pathways 21,22. This evidence concerns the gene AKT1 and neoplasm.