Proteomic discovery in diabetic kidney disease—to what end?

Emerging approaches that enable high-throughput analysis of the plasma proteome have been increasingly deployed in nephrology research. Kobayashi et al. provide a valuable addition to this literature, describing an untargeted proteomic analysis of diabetic kidney disease progression to end-stage kidney disease. This commentary places the study's findings in the context of the broader literature and outlines potential avenues toward biological insight and clinical utility.