Several studies have shown that the activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway is involved in the autophagy of glomerular mesangial cells, which exhibited increased phosphorylation of mTOR (Lee et al., 2019b), PI3K, Akt, and mTOR STZ-induced type 1 diabetic nephropathy (T1DN) (Wang et al., 2020c). Here, AKT1 is linked to type 1 diabetes nephropathy.