It was found that pretreatment of 5 μM SB203580 remarkably attenuated the apoptotic rate (Fig. 5a) and caspase-3 activity (Fig. 5b), while TMPyP4 significantly induced apoptosis by promoting the apoptotic rate, caspase-3 activity, and PARP and caspase-3 protein expression (Fig. 5c) in human cervical cancer cells (P < 0.05). The gene discussed is CASP3; the disease is cervical carcinoma.