CASP9 and cervical cancer: Treatment of HeLa cells with oridonin activated the cell-death pathway by downregulating Akt kinase signaling, causing loss of MMP to trigger Cyt c release from the mitochondria, leading to downstream activation of caspase 9, caspase 3 and downregulating the expression of the survival proteins (cIAP1, XIAP and survivin), which led to cervical cancer cell death [140,141].