MTOR and cancer: In this study, we investigated the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway, a nutrient-responsive metabolic checkpoint pathway coordinating cell growth with energy status [38–42], the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, a pathway that is a highly conserved regulator of cell growth found in all eukaryotes [43–48] and the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, a pathway stimulated by diverse oncogenes and growth factor receptors and a pathway generally thought to exhibit increased activity in most cancers [49–52].