PDHA1 and diabetic kidney disease: We further investigated how VD-VDR inhibits the phosphorylation of PDHA1. Since our previous research confirmed that VD-VDR can activate AMPK in diabetic nephropathy (Li et al., 2022), we detected the level of protein expression of p-AMPK in LPS-induced AKI mice and LPS-treated HK-2 cells.