This diabetes-mediated decrease in HIF-1α protein expression could stem from a defect in phosphorylated Akt (pAkt)-mTOR-dependent signaling because this pathway has been shown to stimulate HIF-1 translation in response to nutrient, growth factors and forskolin (Sengupta et al., 2010; Van de Velde et al., 2011). Here, HIF1A is linked to diabetes mellitus.