Tripterygium wilfordii and its active components upregulate autophagy in diabetic kidney disease (DKD) mice through the mTOR/Twist1 signaling pathway, reduce podocyte transdifferentiation and apoptosis (Tao et al., 2021), reduce interleukin-4 overexpression, enhance cell viability, and inhibit podocyte apoptosis (Li et al., 2020). The gene discussed is MTOR; the disease is diabetic kidney disease.