Discriminating between diabetic nephropathy (DN) and non-diabetic renal disease (NDRD) can help provide more specific treatments. However, there are no ideal biomarkers for their differentiation. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify biomarkers for diagnosing and predicting the progression of DN by investigating different salivary glycopatterns. LC-MS/MS were used to screen different glycopatterns in patients with DN or NDRD. Bioinformatics analyses were used to identify corresponding glycoproteins and predict their function