AKT1 and endothelial dysfunction: The experiments performed by Xu et al. [114] in rat microvascular EC culture demonstrated that PPARγ agonists reversed oxLDL-induced endothelial dysfunction by stimulating AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which is a serine/threonine protein kinase that upregulates the Akt/eNOS/NO pathway enhancing eNOS activity [115].