AKT1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To gain mechanistic insight into the regulation of AKT-mediated oxygen consumption in HCC cells, we examined the phosphorylation of the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex, which is a major regulator of the mitochondrial tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) that produces the precursors for the oxidative phosphorylation, i.e., NADH and FADH2.