Moreover, our results agreed with previous findings that the expression of TF and ADIPOQ was decreased and the expression of SAA1 was increased in the plasma of T2D patients, which enhanced the robustness of our proteomic findings and highlighted the potential of our signature proteins serving as biomarkers for the early detection of (pre)diabetes (Memişoǧulları and Bakan, 2004; Siitonen et al., 2011; Anderberg et al., 2015). Here, SAA1 is linked to diabetes mellitus.