Abstract
Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a chronic complication of diabetes and the most common cause of end-stage kidney disease. It has been reported that multiple factors are involved in the pathogenesis of DN, while the molecular mechanisms that lead to DN are still not fully understood. Numerous risk factors for the development of diabetic nephropathy have been proposed, including ethnicity and inherited genetic differences. Recently, with the development of high-throughput technologies, there is emerging evidence that suggests the important role of epigenetic mechanisms in the pathogenesis of DN. Epigenetic regulations, including DNA methylation, noncoding RNAs, and histone modifications, play a pivotal role in DN pathogenesis by a second layer of gene regulation. All these findings can contribute to developing novel therapies for DN.