The small molecular multi-kinase inhibitor sorafenib has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)16 as the first therapeutic strategy for the treatment of HCC based on data from the phase III Sorafenib HCC Assessment Randomized Protocol (SHARP) trial.17 Therefore, we employed sorafenib as the control for celastrol treatment on AKT/c-Met-induced HCC in mice. Here, AKT1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.