In recent years relevant reports have discussed drugs that target autophagy in the treatment of DKD, such as the herbal extracts, the emerging GLP-1 activators and SGLT2 inhibitors and so on, all of which have been shown to modulate the autophagic process and improve renal function (Huang et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018b; Winiarska et al., 2021; Yamada et al., 2021). This evidence concerns the gene GCG and diabetic kidney disease.