AKT1 and cancer: Our studies showed that exposure to 10 μM ZEA significantly upregulated the PI3K-AKT gene expression in the dGCs, implying that exposure to low concentrations of ZEA (10 μM) might increase the donkey’s risk for ovarian cancer via the PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathway by suppressing the expression of antitumor genes or by activating the expression of cancer-causing genes (Zhang et al., 2017c).