UCP2 and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Our current study demonstrated that the expression of UCP2 protein and mRNA was reduced in CVP neurons early in the development of T2DM in HFD-STZ T2DM rats (4 weeks post-T2DM induction), which is consistent with a previous study that reported reduced UCP2 expression in kidney tissue of T2DM patients (de Souza et al., 2015).