PRKAA1 and cardiac hypertrophy: The cardioprotective role of the AMPK pathway against cardiac hypertrophy involves mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which is a major regulator of myocardial protein synthesis and a major driver of cardiac hypertrophy (Proud, 2004) whose activation regulates cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell migration and metabolism (Li et al., 2014).