In contrast to our experiments reported above, oxymatrine was previously shown to arrest the cell-cycle and induce apoptosis in human glioblastoma cells through EGFR/PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway21 and inhibit the proliferation of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma Hep-2 cells22. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is glioblastoma.