In addition, impaired autophagy evidenced by the renal accumulation of p62/sequestosome 1 (SQSTM1), a substrate of the autophagy-lysosomal degradation pathway, was also demonstrated in STZ-induced diabetic mice (Vallon et al. 2013) and Wistar fatty rats (Kitada et al. 2011), which are common models for type 1 and type 2 diabetes respectively. Here, SQSTM1 is linked to type 2 diabetes mellitus.