Western blot analysis showed that diabetes dampened phosphorylation of AKT and GSK3β, p-AKT-to-AKT ratio and p-GSK3β-to-GSK3β ratio, and enhanced expression of Bax, Bcl-2, cleaved caspase-3 and TGF-β, which was mitigated in the cathepsin K knockout. The gene discussed is CASP3; the disease is diabetes mellitus.