AKT1 and atherosclerosis: Interestingly, our previous study also demonstrated that SYDC prevents the development of atherosclerosis and inflammatory reaction by inhibiting the activation of PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling pathway (Zhou et al., 2017), while another previous study also demonstrated that SYDC protects ischemic myocardium from ischemia-reperfusion injury and inhibits cell apoptosis in cardiomyocytes, and the mechanism underlying the cardioprotective effects is associated with activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway (Liu et al., 2013).