Evaluating the prospects of using gestational diabetes mellitus model to find means of pharmacological correction of the disorders in rat offspring

Abstract

Imbalance of glucose homeostasis in the mother-placenta-fetus system in case of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) leads to pre- and postnatal abnormalities in offspring. Lack of universally recognized GDM-model complicates the search for pathogenetic means to prevent and correct abnormalities in offspring. A model using food load (high-calorie diet) in combination with low doses of diabetogen streptozotocin (HCD-STZ model) seems to be one of the closest in causes, mechanisms of development and clinical findings. Hence, the aim was to work out and assess the suitability of HCD-STZ model of GDM in order to register abnormalities in the offspring and determine the possibility of their pharmacological correction. Rats and its fetuses were the objects of the study. Modeling of GDM involved keeping rats on a high-calorie diet (NCD) for at least 10 weeks followed by a single injection of low-dose STZ on the first day of gestation. The hyperglycemia characteristic of GDM is recorded in less than 40 % of animals in HCD group combined with streptozotocin at a dose of 25 mg/kg. This fact does not allow a reliable assessment of abnormalities of antenatal and postnatal development of offspring. Thus, the model used is not promising for finding means of pharmacological correction of the effect of GDM on offspring.

Keywords

• gestational diabetes mellitus
• high-calorie diet
• streptozotocin
• antenatal development
• rats