Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Incidence of diabetes mellitus worldwide is on the rise, and better methods of prevention and treatment are needed. We evaluated the possible antidiabetic effect of embryonic antitumor modulator (EATM) created by Mkrtchyan, which reportedly exhibit anticancer, neuroprotective and immunomodulatory properties.

Materials and methods: Rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes (55 mg/kg once i.p.) were injected EATM (1 mg/200 g rat body mass once i.p.) in preventive mode and in therapeutic mode. The activity of cortisol, prolactin, IL-4, −6, −8 in the serum, as well as releasing of NAPDH-oxidase in erythrocyte membranes and exosomes of blood serum were studied. For morphological analysis pieces from the pancreas, liver, kidney and heart were stained with hematoxylin-eosin, aldehyde-fuchsin or Azur II-eosin.

Results: The activity of serum cortisol, prolactin, IL-4, −6, −8, as well as releasing of NAPDH-oxidase in erythrocyte membranes and exosomes in blood largely normalized in treated compared to untreated STZ animals. Compared to control animals (Group 1), there was a 4-fold decline in the number of pancreatic β-cells in STZ rats (Group 2), while preventive injection of EATM (Group 3) animals showed significantly smaller decrease in β-cells, with levels being higher than in Group 2. In the EATM-treatment group (Group 4) the number of β-cells was the highest among the treatment groups (P>0.05), and was just 1.4-fold lower than those of control Group 1.

Conclusion: In rats with STZ-induced diabetes both preventive and therapeutic mode of EATM injection revealed definite protective effect. The normalization of studied biochemical, immunological and morphological indices was observed.