Abstract： Objective To investigate the extracellular matrix （ECM） gene expression profile of saphenous vein （SV） in end-stage renal disease （ESRD） patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting （CABG）. Methods Sixty-eight patients who were diagnosed as coronary artery disease by coronary angiography and admitted to Department of Cardiovascular Surgery，Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University from July 2004 to December 2010 were enrolled in this study. According to whether or not they had preoperative ESRD history，all the 68 patients were divided into 2 groups，the ESRD group with 30 ESRD patients who needed maintenance hemodialysis，and the control group with 38 patients without preoperative renal disease. Preoperative clinical data of all the patients were collected in detail. SV samples were obtained at the time of CABG. Microarray，immunohistochemistry and Western blotting were used to investigate the expression profile of ECM genes of SV in ESRD patients undergoing CABG. Results There was no statistical difference in preoperative clinical variables between the 2 groups except the variables which were directly related to their kidney disease （P＞0.05）. There were 16 genes that were up-regulated at least 3-fold and 3 genes that were down-regulated at least 3-fold in the ECM gene expression profile of SV in the ESRD group patients before CABG. The expressions of matrix metalloproteinases-2 （MMP-2） and matrix metalloproteinases-9 （MMP-9） of the ESRD group were significantly higher than those of the control group （2.60±0.50 vs. 0.70±0.16，1.80±0.40 vs. 0.60±0.15，P＜0.01）. The expressions of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 （TIMP-2） and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 （TIMP-3） of the ESRD group were significantly lower than those of the control group （0.60±0.19 vs. 2.20±0.30，0.90±0.28 vs. 2.40±0.70，P＜ 0.05）. Conclusion A variety of ESRD-related risk factors of cardiovascular diseases may severely influence on the balance of ECM gene expression of SV before CABG，and the resulting imbalance is a risk factor to aggravate SV graft disease after CABG.