Although pathogenic mechanisms of DKD remain unclear, several factors are considered to be involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy including the generation of advanced glycation end products (Saxena et al., 2019), reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Lindblom et al., 2015; Han et al., 2018), endoplasmic reticulum stress (Fan et al., 2017; Umanath and Lewis, 2018), and inflammatory factors and activation of the renin-angiotensin system. This evidence concerns the gene REN and diabetic kidney disease.