In the current study, we demonstrated that inflammation factors, including IL-6, TNF and TGF-β1 in serum samples of ZnT8-KO-STZ and ZnT8-KO-db/db mice were significantly increased, which suggested that these inflammation factors together with ZnT8 dysfunction may play an important role in the progression of DKD. Here, TGFB1 is linked to diabetic kidney disease.