HMGCR and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: *Scutellaria baicalensis* ameliorates NAFLD via AMPK-mediated SREBP signaling (Chen et al., 2018), aligning with our findings that TAC significantly enhanced hepatic AMPK phosphorylation in HFD mice while suppressing HMGCR and SREBP-1c expression, including nuclear SREBP-1c.