AKT1 and triple-A syndrome: Here, we found that the proportion of autophagy protein LC3B and Beclin1 in VSMCs increased following the Ang-II treatment, but this effect was largely reversed by metformin and enhanced under the co-stimulation of PI3K inhibitors, indicating that VSMCs autophagy is present in AAA progression and that metformin might reduce this phenomenon by mediating the PI3K/AKT pathway.