MTOR and liver dysplastic nodule: In agreement with the results of the in vivo study, hyperoside, which is a bioactive component of HKC, at concentrations of 5 and 15 μg/mL significantly downregulated the protein expression of p-Akt, p-mTOR, p-PI3K, and p-p70S6K in murine mesangial cells induced by high glucose levels in vitro (Wu et al., 2018), which suggested that HKC safely and efficiently alleviates early pathological changes in the glomeruli in DN by inhibiting the PI3K/Akt/mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway in vivo and in vitro and provides reliable evidence of the prevention of early DN.