In summary, as depicted in Fig 6, we demonstrated that PP7 induced an autophagic cell death in HepG2 cells via inhibition of PI3K/AKT/mTOR and activation of AMPK and JNK/Beclin-1/Bcl-2 pathways, suggesting that the anticancer activity of PP7 was attributable to, at least partially, the induction of autophagy and autophagic cell death, which are praised to be novel targets for cancer prevention and treatment. This evidence concerns the gene AKT1 and cancer.