In diabetic nephropathy (DN) patients, DN mouse models, and in vitro high glucose (HG)-induced HK2 cell models, increased expression of pyroptosis marker proteins, cleaved-caspase-1 and GSDMD-NT, has been observed in tubular cells (Lan et al., 2022; Wen et al., 2022; Yuan et al., 2022; Cui et al., 2023). The gene discussed is GSDMD; the disease is liver dysplastic nodule.