Critical components of the diabetic milieu, glucose, and advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), induce TGFβ1 expression in human diabetic nephropathy (Iwano et al., 1996) as well as in mesangial cells (Ziyadeh et al., 1998; Kim et al., 2001) and proximal tubule epithelial cells in culture (Rocco et al., 1992). Here, TGFB1 is linked to diabetic kidney disease.