Additional experiments further confirmed that inhibition of heat stress induced AKT signaling via PI3K or PI3K/mTOR inhibition significantly enhanced heat stress induced HCC cell killing, caspase 3/7 activity and cleaved caspase 3 generation, suggesting that inhibition of PI3K/mTOR may enhance heat stress induced cell killing by in part increasing apoptosis. Here, CASP3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.