Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. May 15, 2023; 14(5): 460-480
Published online May 15, 2023. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v14.i5.460
Early diabetic kidney disease: Focus on the glycocalyx
Hui Yu, Yi-Yun Song, Xian-Hua Li
Hui Yu, Yi-Yun Song, Xian-Hua Li, Department of Nephrology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Yu H wrote the paper and collected the data; Song YY collected the data; Li XH was responsible for the design and guidance of the manuscript; and all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province of China, No. ZR2019MH072.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xian-Hua Li, MD, Professor, Department of Nephrology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, No. 107 Wenhua Xi Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. lixianhua7075@sina.com
Received: December 7, 2022
Peer-review started: December 7, 2022
First decision: February 28, 2023
Revised: March 10, 2023
Accepted: April 12, 2023
Article in press: April 12, 2023
Published online: May 15, 2023
Processing time: 135 Days and 23.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: In the diabetic microenvironment, various harmful factors, such as oxidative stress and inflammation, contribute to endothelial glycocalyx (EG) disruption through direct damage to the glycocalyx or indirect degradation due to the upregulation of related sheddases. Shedding one or more components after damage to the EG is an early sign of numerous pathological states, including diabetes. The loss of filtration barrier integrity can lead to microalbuminuria, which is predictive of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Identifying and targeting the key molecules involved in glycocalyx damage thus represent current hot topics in DKD research.