Diabetic nephropathy is an important microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus,which is still no satisfactory treatment by western medicine at present.Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has some advantages and characteristics in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy.TCM syndrome is the core of syndrome differentiation and treatment,and it is the localization and qualitative analysis of diseases in TCM,the decision-making of disease treatment program,and the compatibility method of medications.It is also one of the key breakthrough points for modern medicine to explore TCM and to combine Chinese and Western medicine.Using modern medical study technologies and means to make TCM syndromes of diabetic nephropathy gradually achieve objectification and quantification,it is very important for TCM to recognize,diagnose and improve the curative effect of diabetic nephropathy,and is more conducive to promote the development of TCM and the integration of Chinese and Western medicine.Therefore,combining with recent studies on the TCM syndrome of diabetic nephropathy,this paper started from three aspects of its syndrome,which were the modern research methods and the distribution of syndrome,the correlation between syndromes and the index of western medicine,and the application of metabolomics in TCM syndrome research,in order to provide new ideas for modern medical study and clinical diagnosis and treatment of diabetic nephropathy.