中文摘要：

2型糖尿病（type 2 diabetes mellitus,T2DM）的发病率迅速增加,最新流行病学调查显示目前我国糖尿病的患病率为9.7%,而糖尿病肾病（diabetic nephropathy,DN）是糖尿病常见的慢性微血管并发症,据WHO预计,2030年全球糖尿病患者将达3.7亿，其中1／3可能发展为DN，最近在Lancet上发表的一篇关于慢性肾脏病（chronic kidney disease，CKD）的流行病学研究显示我国CKD的患病率为10．8％，而这部分人群中有36．4％患有糖尿病，分析显示糖尿病是CKD的独立危险因素。

英文摘要：

Diabetic nephropathy （DN） is one of the most common microvascular complications of dia- betic mellitus. Its treatment by now is mainly focused on the suppression of the renin-angiotonin system and the control of relative risk factors such as hypertention, hyperglycemia and so on, whose effectiveness is disappointed. Stem cells can be found in almost all organs and tissues, the main functional characteristics of stem cells are their capacity for self-renewal, the differentiation into several other cell types, and their immunomodulatory ability. In this article, we review the potential of stem cells as new therapeutic agents in the treatment of DN, discuss about how the diabetic environment affects these cells, and the therapeutic benefits that these stem cells offer for treating DN, suggesting that stem cells therapies might represent a new and promising strategy for the treatment of DN.