TGFB1 and diabetic kidney disease: These findings support the view that the CDA1/TGFβ axis plays a key pathological role in DKD, probably as a result of promoting cellular senescence thus compromising tissue repair in the kidney upon injury by diabetes, as well as by enhancing the profibrotic process leading to tissue scar formation, known as fibrosis, at a later stage of disease (Figure 2).