MTOR and cancer: In addition, isoliquiritigenin upregulated autophagy-related protein 5 (ATG5) expression and downregulated the expressions of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and AKT in renal carcinoma cells, indicating that isoliquiritigenin exerted anti-cancer activity by inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway to induce autophagy (Figure 1; Table 1) (Xin et al., 2019).