MTOR and liver cancer: mTOR was usually highly expressed in tumor cells.28 Inhibition of mTOR function and inactivation of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway could induce autophagy.29 The results of western blot analysis in the present study showed that the p-PI3K, PI3K, p-Akt, Akt, p-mTOR, mTOR were significantly decreased in liver cancer tissues treated with schisandrin A combined with ultrasound (P < 0.01).