In addition, apatinib treatment increased the expression of apoptosis‐related protein including cleaved‐caspase3 and poly ADP‐ribose polymerase (PARP), while downregulated the expression of anti‐apoptotic protein Bcl‐2 and upregulated the expression of pro‐apoptotic protein Bax, supporting the results that apatinib (around IC50 concentration) induced HCC apoptosis through the mitochondrial‐dependent pathway in vitro (Figure 5C‐D). The gene discussed is BAX; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.