RB1 and diabetic kidney disease: At animal levels, Rb1 can improve the quality of life of diabetic nephropathy induced by streptozotocin in rats, reduce serum creatinine and urea nitrogen, mesangial hyperplasia of the glomerulus, and dilatation of renal tubules, mainly via down-regulating mRNA and protein expression of MCP-1 mRNA and TGF-β1 mRNA in kidney tissue (Zhao et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2008; Koizumi et al., 2013).