AKT1 and endothelial dysfunction: Dong et al. (2016) reported that TSG could inhibit excessive autophagy and improve microvascular endothelial dysfunction in a rat model of spontaneous hypertension. The protective effect was mainly attributed to the restoration of microvascular endothelial dysfunction by activating the AKT/mTOR pathway, which inhibited autophagy (Dong et al., 2016).