Diabetic kidney disease (DKD), the leading cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end stage renal disease (ESRD), has garnered much attention because of its high prevalence, poor prognosis, and heavy economic burden. The multifactorial intervention, including lowering blood pressure and glucose levels, inhibiting the renin-angiotensin system, and controlling lipids, fails to fully prevent the onset and progression of DKD. Therefore, more specific pathophysiologic mechanisms or renal cellular processes underlying DKD should be identified to develop additional treatment modalities and strategies. Also, some predictive biomarkers should be further studied for moving towards clinical application, as well as more randomized controlled trials should be carried out to summarize valuable clinical data.

Fortunately, in the last years the pathogenesis of DKD has been intensely investigated and a better understanding of the molecular and cellular processes in DKD, such as accelerated senescence in renal intrinsic cells, autophagy inactivation, and lysosomal dysfunction, has been provided. Accordingly, some targets have led to a development of new therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, quite a few biomarkers, such as microRNAs, KIM-1, and NGAL, offer us a potential perspective for diagnosis, management, and prognosis of DKD. In addition to the results from ACCORD, ADVANCE, and VADT trials, some useful data are also obtained from a few randomized controlled trials.

In view of this, we invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that focus on the potential pathogenesis and therapeutic targets of DKD discovered in recent years.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• What is new for the potential pathogenesis
• Novel therapeutic targets in experimental study
• Recent clinical advances in diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers
• New insights and developments in clinical trials