The Effect of Induced Diabetes Mellitus on the Cerebellar Cortex of Adult Male Rat and the Possible Protective Role of Oxymatrine: A Histological, Immunohistochemical and Biochemical Study

ABSTRACT

Diabetes mellitus (DM) represents a widespread metabolic disease with a well-known neurotoxicity in both central and peripheral nervous systems. Oxymatrine is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine that has various pharmacological activities including: anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory potentials. The present work aimed to study the impact of diabetes mellitus on the cerebellar cortex of adult male albino rat and to evaluate the potential protective role of oxymatrine. Fifty-five adult male rats were randomly divided into three groups: group I served as control, group II was given oxymatrine (80 mg/kg/day) orally for 8 weeks and group III was given a single dose of streptozotocin (50 mg/kg) intaperitoneally to induce diabetes. Then diabetic rats were subdivided into two subgroups: subgroup IIIa that received no additional treatment and subgroup IIIb that received oxymatrine similar to group II. The diabetic group revealed numerous changes in the Purkinje cell layer in the form of multilayer arrangement of Purkinje cells, shrunken cells with deeply stained nuclei as well as focal loss of the Purkinje cells. A significant increment in glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and synaptophysin expression were reported in immunohistochemistry compared with the control group. Transmission electron microscopy showed irregularity and splitting of myelin sheaths in the molecular layer, dark shrunken Purkinje cells with ill-defined nuclei, dilated Golgi saccules and dense granule cells with irregular nuclear outlines in the granular layer. In contrast, these changes were less evident in diabetic rats that received oxymatrine. In conclusion, Oxymatrine could protect the cerebellar cortex against changes induced by DM.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebellum
• diabetes
• oxymatrine
• GFAP
• synaptophysin

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [dr Amany Mohamed Shalaby], [dr Mona Tayssir Sadek], [dr Adel Mohamed Abo Regela] and [dr Mohamed Ali Alabiad. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [dr Amany Mohamed Shalaby] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethical statement

All animal work was conducted under the guidelines for the use of animals in research established by the local ethical committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Egypt (Approval number: 34265/11/20).

Data Availability

Datasets are available in a public repository that assigns persistent identifiers to the datasets.

Additional information

Funding

This work was not funded by any grant sponsors or organizations.