BAX and diabetes mellitus: We also found abnormal TRPC6 activation and high glucose-induced podocyte apoptosis in the DM and HG groups, characterized by increased expression levels of cleaved-caspase-3 and bax/bcl-2 ratios, while FK506 reduced the extent of podocyte damage related to DN and attenuated the elevated expression levels of TRPC6 with improvement in the nephrin expression.