Abstract: Objective　To investigate the application significance of urine protein electrophoresis in early diabetic nephropathy（DN).   Methods　Urine protein electrophoresis was used to analyze 48 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with urine microalbumin（mAlb）15-300 mg/24 h. Dry chemistry urine protein，urine glucose，urine occult blood and glycosylated hemoglobin were also measured. A total of 10 healthy controls were enrolled and analyzed by urine protein electrophoresis. Results　The 8（17%）patients showed tubular proteinuria，36（75%）patients showed glomerular proteinuria[32（67%）cases：microalbuminuria and 4（8%）cases：selective glomerular proteinuria]，and 4（8%）patients showed no urine protein band by urine protein electrophoresis. There were statistical significances in the scan percentage of urine protein among the all groups（P＜0.05）. Among the 10 healthy controls，no urine protein band was detected. The 2 of 8 cases of tubular proteinuria showed urine mAlb ≤30 mg/24 h. There was a positive correlation between the percentage of tubular urine proteins and glycosylated hemoglobin（r＝0.300）. Conclusions　Tubular dysfunction accounts for a considerable proportion in early DN. Urine protein electrophoresis combined with urine mAlb determination can decrease the probability of missed diagnosis of tubular proteinuria in early DN.

Key words: Electrophoresis, Tubular proteinuria, Diabetic nephropathy