VIM and diabetic kidney disease: To further elucidate the link between oxidative stress and pro-fibrotic pathways, this study examined the influence of endothelial NOX5 on markers of EMT, including smooth muscle actin-α (α-SMA) and vimentin, the intermediate filament protein recognized as an essential component regulating EMT as well as EMT-related factors such as the cell proliferation marker ki67 and the prosclerotic growth factor CTGF in DKD [11,15,73,76,77].