At present, inhibitors of PI3K–Akt (mTOR and ETP-45658), AMPK (doxorubicin hydrochloride and dorsomorphin dihydrochloride) and MAPK (PD98059, PD184352 and PD0325901) are already being successfully used in the clinic for the treatment of diverse cancer types and inflammatory diseases; in contrast, the AMPK activator metformin is the only drug targeting protein kinase activity that is widely used today, demonstrating the dual roles of AMPK activation (Arana-Argáez et al., 2010; Farhan et al., 2017). This evidence concerns the gene MTOR and cancer.