MTOR and breast carcinoma: It was demonstrated that SPS could promote apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cells by regulating the expression of Bcl-2 and Bax (Tao, 2012; Luo et al., 2015), and also induce apoptosis by blocking the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway in MDA-MB-435 human breast cancer cells (Liu N. et al., 2018).