MTOR and cancer: We then compared the main protein expression profiles of the mTOR pathway, namely eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4EBP1), ribosomal protein S6 (S6), and Akt with a clearly higher mTOR expression in cancer cells compared to non-cancerous stem cells, mainly with the 4EBP1 marker (Figure 1b).