AimTo investigate the level of plasma adiponectin in patients with diabetic nephropathy, and its relationship to vascular endothelial function.MethodsFifty type 2 diabetic patients without clinical macrovascular complications were randomly assigned to normal albuminuria group(NAU), microalbuminuria group(MAU) and macroalbuminuria group(CAU) according to the daily urinary albumin excretion (UAE).Plasma adiponectin, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1(sVCAM-1) and other biochemical indexes were measured.Color Doppler examination was followed to evaluate flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), nitroglycerin vasodilation (NID), cardiologic parameters and intima-media thickness (IMT).ResultsIn CAU group, plasma concentration of adiponectin was 4-fold and 2-fold higher than that in NAU group and MAU group respectively (13.3±5.0 mg/L vs 3.7±1.6 mg/L vs 5.7±2.2 mg/L, p<0.01 and p<0.05), while the difference between NAU group and MAU group was also significant (p<0.05).The ratio of adiponectin to serum creatinine followed the same trend along three groups (p<0.05).Plasma sVCAM-1 was significantly increased in MAU group and CAU group than that in NAU group (p<0.01 and p<0.05).FMD and NID were signifi-cantly decreased in contrast to the increment of plasma adiponectin (p<0.05).IMT was comparable between three groups (p>0.05).Finally, adiponectin was positively correlated with sVCAM-1, UAE, creatinine, left ventricular posterior wall thickness and IMT（r=0.338, 0.704, 0.470, 0.331, 0.324 respectively，all p<0.05）, while negatively correlated with FMD and NID (r=－0.397 and －0.413 respectively, p<0.01).ConclusionsDiabetic nephropathy is accompanied with hyperadiponectinemia, which is closely related to vascular endothelial dysfunction.Adiponectin may act as an early predictor of vascular endothelial dysfunction in these patients.