Early initiation of insulin attenuates histological and functional changes in the liver of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats using ^99mTc-sulfur colloid functional imaging

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of insulin on the reticuloendothelial system (RES) in the liver and spleen in diabetic rats. Sprague Dawley rats were divided into control, diabetic rats (DM) and diabetic rats treated with insulin (IDM) for 2 weeks. Rats were imaged with technetium-99m-sulfur colloid (^99mTc-SC) tracer to determine regional distributions of the tracer for all groups by drawing regions of interest and then obtained the ratios as the cumulative counts of heart, liver, and spleen to the whole body (WB). Liver tissue from sacrificed rats from each group was examined by light and electron microscopy. ^99mTc-SC uptake ratios showed a lower liver to WB uptake ratio in the DM rats compared to both controls and IDM rats. Electron microscopy showed severe vacuolization of the hepatocytes of DM rats. The IDM rats show complete resolution of the vacuolization. The early administration of insulin for 2 weeks to diabetic rats could significantly resolve the phagocytic RES function and histological changes in the liver.

Keywords:

• Diabetes
• insulin
• Sprague Dawley rat
• histopathology
• phagocytic cells

Author contributions

Conceptualization: F.A.S. and S.K.W.; methodology: F.A.S. K.M.K.; SKW software: K.M.K.; validation: FAS., P.R., M.S., and S.K.W.; formal analysis: F.A.S.; investigation: F.A.S.; resources: S.K.W., K.M.K.; data curation: P.R.; writing-original draft preparation: F.A.S.; writing-review and editing: F.A.S., P.R.; visualization: SKW.; supervision: KMK.; project administration: FAS.; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data are available within the paper.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Kuwait University-Electron Microscopy Unit.