Indeed, using diabetic animal models, Sun and Xu demonstrate for the first time that diabetes can induce the upregulation of HOTTIP. To better understand the implications of this lncRNA in DR, the researchers administered an intraocular HOTTIP shRNA in diabetic rats and found that the knockdown of HOTTIP can directly attenuate diabetes-induced electroretinogram abnormalities and retinal inflammation, which was evident through reduced expressions of VEGF and ICAM-1 proteins. This evidence concerns the gene VEGFA and diabetes mellitus.