Results of the present study are comparable with those of a previous study, which suggested that combined treatment of the liver cancer cell lines SMMC7721 and HepG2 with sora and berberine upregulated the expression of the cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase and cleaved caspase-3, while it downregulated the expression of the antiapoptotic protein cell lympho-2 and VEGF [39]. Here, CASP3 is linked to liver cancer.