Animal models of diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Animal models have been used extensively in diabetes research. Early studies used pancreatectomised dogs to confirm the central role of the pancreas in glucose homeostasis, culminating in the discovery and purification of insulin. Today, animal experimentation is contentious and subject to legal and ethical restrictions that vary throughout the world. Most experiments are carried out on rodents, although some studies are still performed on larger animals. Several toxins, including streptozotocin and alloxan, induce hyperglycaemia in rats and mice. Selective inbreeding has produced several strains of animal that are considered reasonable models of Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 diabetes and related phenotypes such as obesity and insulin resistance. Apart from their use in studying the pathogenesis of the disease and its complications, all new treatments for diabetes, including islet cell transplantation and preventative strategies, are initially investigated in animals. In recent years, molecular biological techniques have produced a large number of new animal models for the study of diabetes, including knock‐in, generalized knock‐out and tissue‐specific knockout mice.

A new model of insulin-deficient diabetes: male NOD mice with a single copy of Ins1 and no Ins2

“…We are surprised that there is not compensation for insulin deficiency with the single copy of Ins1 and with two copies of Ins1. However, a strain derived from the same colony as the NOD mouse, the NagoyaShibata-Yasuda mouse [9,10], a model of type 2 diabetes, which may share background genome with NOD [11,12], has no compensational hypertrophy of pancreatic islets despite increasing insulin resistance with ageing [9]. In addition, Kulkarni et al reported the importance of background genome in the induction of type 2 diabetes [13].…”

“…We believe that greater insulin resistance for male mice with marginal insulin production leads to hyperglycaemia. In fact, most animal models of type 2 diabetes (including NagoyaShibata-Yasuda mice) show a high prevalence of type 2 diabetes in male mice [9,10].…”

Alterations in liver sinusoidal endothelium in a baboon model of type 1 diabetes

“…The Australian National Primate colony has a long established non-human primate colony (Papio hamadryas), in which type 1 diabetes mellitus was induced by streptozotocin administered at an average 2 years of age [14]. Streptozotocin destroys the insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas and creates a hypoinsulinaemic, hyperglycaemic state that is similar to type 1 diabetes mellitus [15]. In many animal models, streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus has been shown to closely resemble that seen in humans [14] and such models are generally considered to be excellent for the study of type 1 diabetes [16].…”

Biospeciation of tungsten in the serum of diabetic and healthy rats treated with the antidiabetic agent sodium tungstate

“…Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes in rats is an interesting model because it triggers insulinopenic diabetes, which, as in human type 1 diabetes [7], involves the impairment of the immune system. Type 1 diabetes results from the selective destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in pancreatic islets [8].…”