MTOR and cancer: In various types of cancer cells, activation of AMPK induces apoptosis via the p38, Akt, and mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, which could regulate p21, p27, and p53 expression; B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) family proteins, and cleavage of caspases (Li et al., 2015).