Gut microbiota: an important player in diabetic kidney disease

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is one of the most prevalent and severe microvascular complications of diabetes, with growing morbidity and mortality. The dysbiosis of gut microbiota exhibits a robust correlation with DKD pathogenesis. Recently, a growing body of researches have significantly advanced our comprehension of the gut microbiota's role in influencing the onset, progression, prevention, and therapeutic strategies for DKD.

We performed a comprehensive literature search across multiple scientific databases to investigate the relationship between gut microbiota and DKD, the role of gut dysbiosis in DKD pathogenesis, and novel gut-kidney axis-based therapeutic approaches. The selection of the articles are based on relevance to the research topic, methodological rigor, and contribution to the field.

Our review demonstrates that gut microbiota in DKD patients exhibits distinct compositional alterations compared to healthy individuals, characterized by reduced microbial diversity, altered abundance, and taxonomic shifts at genus/species levels. Mechanistically, gut microbiota influences DKD through multiple pathways: inflammatory activation, epithelial barrier dysfunction, vascular hyperpermeability, and metabolite-mediated signaling. Crucially, the imbalance of gut microbiota may initiate or accelerate DKD pathogenesis, whereas short-chain fatty acids, probiotics and dietary interventions demonstrate protective effects against disease onset and progression.

Microbiota-targeted intervention represents a promising therapeutic strategies for DKD management.