The progression of diabetic nephropathy is driven by multiple molecular mechanisms (Tuttle et al., 2022; Hou et al., 2025), including TGF-β1/Smads, NF-κB, MAPK, PI3K/AKT, NLRP3 inflammasome, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs), JAK/STAT, and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) pathways. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is diabetic kidney disease.