Objective To investigate the relationship between plasma Chemerin and diabetic nephropathy of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods Totally 195 T2DM patients and 65 healthy controls were enrolled in this study.The T2DM patients were further divivded into three subgroups:normal albuminuria group (n =65),microalbuminuria group (n =65),and clinical albuminuria group (n =65).The plasma Chemerin level was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Results The serum Chemerin level was (150.20 ±21.99) μg/L in diabetic patients,which was significantly higher than that in healthy controls (62.13 ± 18.90) μg/L) (P ＜0.01).Inside the T2DM group,the plasma Chemerin level was [(143.63 ± 22.33) μg/L] in the microalbuminuria group and [(173.21 ± 23.91) μg/L] in the clinical albuminuria group (P ＜ 0.001),and both were significantly higher than that in the normal albuminuria group [(100.35 ±20.11) μg/L] (both P ＜0.01).Multivariate regression analysis showed that the plasma Chemerin level was independently associated with glycosylated hemoglobin (β =0.216,P =0.038),total cholesterol (β =1.867,P =0.048),high-sensitivity c-reactive protein (β =12.330,P ＜ 0.001),and urine albumin (β =37.184,P ＜0.001) in T2DM patients.Conclusion Plasema Chemerin level increases in T2DM patients and therefore can be a reliable indicator for detecting early type 2 diabetic nephropathy.