CCL2 and diabetes mellitus: This study used a STZ mouse model of diabetes to examine the renal expression of TLR-4, a key regulator of inflammatory response and MCP-1, a chemokine that drives macrophage infiltration as well as F4/80 and CD68, key markers of inflammation, which are known to have augmented expression levels in experimental models of DKD [15,37,50,51,52].