Recently, increasing numbers of studies have clarified the central role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of DN in vivo and in vitro through various pro-inflammatory factors, including NF-κB, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), TNF-α, and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) (Elmarakby and Sullivan, 2012; Sun and Kanwar, 2015; Sun et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2016). Here, IL1B is linked to liver dysplastic nodule.