Juan Jin et al reported that adipose-derived stem cells-exosome (ADSCs-Exo) can alleviate the levels of proteinuria, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and podocyte apoptosis in DKD rats, and the underlying mechanism could be the upregulated expression of miR-486 induce the inhibition of the Smad1/mTOR signaling pathway (Jin et al., 2019). The gene discussed is MTOR; the disease is diabetic kidney disease.