Abstract: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complex disease which is caused by the interaction of blood glucose levels, duration of diabetes, and genetic and environmental factors. The research of its related genes or susceptibility genes is very active in the recent years. These candidate genes include aldose reductase gene (AR), vascular endothelial growth factor gene (VEGF), angiotensinconvening enzyme gene (ACE), inducible and constitutive nitric oxide synthases gene (NOS), receptor for advanced glycation endproducts gene (RAGE) and so on. DR is a disease of the role of multiple genes, and therefore there is different polymorphisms in each gene. It is very important for us to accurately understand the mechanism of the difference expression of gene during the occurrence and development of DR for the early diagnosis and prevention of DR. The current research advance in DR relevant gene is reviewed in this article.