AKT1 and cervical cancer: In priCC-1 primary human cervical cancer cells, GJB5 silencing via shRNA (kdGJB5-sh1, kdGJB5-sh2, see Figs. 4 and 5) or CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout (koGJB5-sg1, koGJB5-sg2, see Fig. 6) significantly reduced phosphorylation of Akt (Ser-473) and its downstream target, S6K1, as determined by western blotting analysis (Fig. 8A, B).