EGF and diabetes mellitus: Probably the early clues to the involvement of EGFR/ErbB receptors in diabetes-induced complications were the observation that excretion of EGF ligand was abnormal in many patients with diabetes (Lev-Ran et al., 1990) and that EGF gene expression was elevated in the mesenteric artery of rats bearing type 1 diabetes (Gilbert et al., 2000).