Moreover, an in vitro study showed that a low concentration of caffeine inhibits the progression of HCC via the Akt signaling pathway (Dong et al., 2015), while another study showed that caffeine inhibited the proliferation of liver cancer cells and activated the MEK/ERK/EGFR signaling pathway (Okano et al., 2008). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.