Novel lncRNA Erbb4-IR Promotes Diabetic Kidney Injury in Mice by Targeting miR-29b.

Transforming growth factor-β/Smad signaling plays an important role in diabetic nephropathy. The current study identified a novel Smad3-dependent long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) Erbb4-IR in the development of type 2 diabetic nephropathy (T2DN) in mice. We found that Erbb4-IR was highly expressed in T2DN of mice and specifically induced by advanced glycosylation end products (AGEs) via a Smad3-dependent mechanism.