MTOR and hepatocellular carcinoma: To further demonstrate the role of circRNA-100338 in mTOR signaling, we also measured the mTORC1 (mTOR complex 1) protein expression in the cell lines above and another pair of highly and lowly metastatic potential HCC cell lines, MHCC97H, and BEL7402, in the presence and absence of circRNA-100338, and found that mTORC1 could be upregulated by the circRNA-100338 (Figures 4C,D).