MTOR and hepatocellular carcinoma: We also found that a high level of FBXL6 was positively associated with the protein levels of p-ERK (χ2 = 85.067, P < 0.001) and p-mTOR (χ2 = 66.919, P < 0.001) in approximately 50% of HCC patients (Fig. 6a, d), which further suggested that the ERK/mTOR axis is a downstream target of FBXL6.