However, in diabetic mice, exogenous apelin-13 administrations at a dose of 30 μg/kg/day exacerbated podocyte effacement, endothelial dysfunction, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and impaired autophagy in the kidneys (Liu et al., 2017b; Guo et al., 2015). Here, APLN is linked to endothelial dysfunction.