Dear Editor Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease that has become a major epidemic worldwide.1 High blood glucose is thought to be the primary cause of most devastating long-term complications of diabetes.2 In addition to strict glycemic control,a number of therapeutics have been used to slow down the progression of diabetic complications.3 However,a majority of current therapies for most diabetic complications have shown disappointing results in clinical trials.Because these complications arise from a number of pathological processes,targets for early interventions that could lead to effective treatments are largely unknown.Clarification of existing pathways and elucidation of new mechanisms,especially those involved in the early stages of diabetic complications,are sorely needed to design preventative treatments.Interestingly,diabetic complications and ciliopathies share a number of symptoms,such as retinal degeneration and respiratory dysfunction.3 Therefore,we hypothesized that ciliary defects may underlie a subset of diabetic complications.
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