MTOR and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: In addition, Dabin Liu [65] proved experimentally that recombinant squalene monooxygenase (SQLE) can induce the silencing of PTEN, the upstream regulatory gene in the PI3K/Akt pathway, leading to the activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway to promote NAFLD-associated HCC.