Li et al. found that the protein and mRNA expression levels of Nrf2 in the renal tubules of diabetic mice in the DM group were significantly lower than those in the NC group, as determined by immunofluorescence analysis, western blotting and qRT–PCR analysis (Dodson et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2021; Zhao et al., 2021). The gene discussed is NFE2L2; the disease is diabetes mellitus.