PTX3 and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Figure 1(a) showed that plasma PTX3 levels were consistently decreased from NGT to T2DM without DN and to the patients with DN in males (3.98, 2.78, and 1.63 ng/mL; P = 0.008 ANOVA test). Among males, the patients with DN had lower PTX3 levels compared to T2DM without DN (1.63 versus 3.08 ng/mL; P = 0.013). In females, however, there was no statistically significant difference of the mean values of plasma PTX3 levels among NGT and T2DM with and without DN (3.09, 3.55, and 2.11 ng/mL; P = 0.262, ANOVA test) (Figure 1(b)).