In accordance with renal dysfunction and the increased markers of oxidative stress (urinary 8-OHdG excretion and renal cortical LPO), significantly higher concentrations of TGF-β1 were detected in plasma of DC rats than in C rats on both the 4th week (17.09 ± 1.10 pg ml−1 vs. 12.09 ± 0.75 pg ml−1, P < 0.01) and 12th week (20.34 ± 0.96 pg ml−1 vs. 13.29 ± 0.85 pg ml−1, P < 0.01) after diabetes induction, as shown in Figure 4. The gene discussed is TGFB1; the disease is diabetes mellitus.