Diabetes: caught in the Akt?

One complication of diabetes is a pronounced renal cellular hypertrophy, inevitably resulting in chronic fibrotic changes. Chuang and colleagues demonstrate that hypertrophy in vitro is dependent on an increased phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) activity and is correlated with increased levels of p21(WAF1/Cip1), a cell-cycle regulator that was previously associated with renal fibrosis and sclerosis from nondiabetic causes.