SPRED2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To confirm the involvement of mTORC1 in autophagy of HCC cells, we used rapamycin to inhibit the mTORC1 pathway and found that inhibition of the mTORC1 pathway completely decreased the phosphorylation of p70SK6 and increased the level of LC3-II in both control cells and SPRED2-KO HepG2 cells (Figure 4B).