Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 2006. / Bracketed B in title is the Greek letter beta. Includes bibliographical references (leaves150-169). Also available online through Digital Dissertations.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg / Throughout the world, many traditional plant treatments for diabetes exist and therein lies a hidden wealth of potentially useful natural products for diabetes contrl. Despite this, few traditional antidiabetic plants have received scientific or medical scrutiny, and the World Health Organisation ( 1980 ) recommended accordingly that this area warrants further evaluation. / IT2018

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning)--Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2009. / Härtill 3 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2006. / Härtill 3 uppsatser.

Orientadores: Antonio Carlos Boschiero, Alex Rafacho / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Biologia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T03:03:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Protzek_AndreOtavioPeres_D.pdf: 8312725 bytes, checksum: 2126056342598338000e5d9925e59082 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Os glicocorticoides (GC) são amplamente utilizados devido aos seus efeitos anti-inflamatórios. Porém, o tratamento com GC pode induzir efeitos deletérios sobre a homeostase glicêmica como a resistência à insulina (RI), intolerância à glicose e, dependendo do tempo e dose, pode levar a instalação do Diabetes mellitus tipo 2 (DM2). Neste sentido, ratos têm sido vastamente utilizados como modelo animal para elucidar as compensações pancreáticas envolvidas na hiperinsulinemia induzida por GC e, poucos estudos enfocando os efeitos do tratamento com GC foram realizados em camundongos. Além disso, não é completamente elucidado se a hiperinsulinemia compensatória induzida pelo tratamento com GC esta associada com alteração do clearance de insulina. Assim, nossos objetivos foram avaliar se: as compensações do pâncreas endócrino em resposta ao tratamento com GC são similares entre camundongos e ratos e, identificar possíveis mecanismos que as expliquem; e se a hiperinsulinemia compensatória induzida pelo tratamento com GC em camundongos e ratos esta associada com alterações do clearance de insulina e a expressão da proteína insuling degrading enzyme (IDE) no fígado. Para isto, camundongos Swiss e ratos Wistar machos foram tratados com o glicocorticoide sintético dexametasona (1 mg/kg p.c.; 5 dias consecutivos). O tratamento com GC induziu RI, hiperinsulinemia e dislipidemia em ambas as espécies, embora mais pronunciado em ratos, que também apresentaram intolerância à glicose e hiperglicemia no jejum. Ambas as espécies tratadas com GC apresentaram incremento da secreção de insulina ex vivo estimulada com glicose, massa e proliferação de células ?, que foram associados com aumento da sinalização da via Ir-?/AKT/mTOR e redução da via AMPK/ACC/AS160 em ilhotas isoladas. O clearance de insulina reduziu em camundongos e ratos tratados com GC, o que foi associado com redução da expressão de IDE no fígado. Desta forma, nossos resultados indicam que camundongos são menos sensíveis aos efeitos deletérios do tratamento com GC sobre a homeostase glicêmica, quando comparado com ratos. Ainda, camundongos e ratos apresentam compensações pancreáticas semelhantes (incremento da função e massa de células ?) em resposta ao tratamento com GC, que foi associado com aumento da sinalização da via canônica de insulina e redução da via não canônica em ilhotas isoladas. Além disso, a redução do clearance de insulina foi, ao menos em parte, devido a redução da expressão de IDE no fígado, o que contribuiu para a hiperinsulinemia compensatória em ambas as espécies tratadas com GC. Em conclusão, estes resultados corroboram a hipótese de que fármacos que inibam a expressão ou atividade da IDE no fígado podem ser uma intervenção anti-diabetogênica que auxilie na manutenção da homeostase glicêmica sem sobrecarregar as células ? / Abstract: Glucocorticoids (GCs) are widely used as anti-inflammatory agent, but they may induce adverse metabolic effects such as insulin resistance (IR), glucose intolerance, and occasionally, diabetes mellitus type 2. Healthy rats have been used as animal models to elucidate the islet compensatory mechanisms involved in these metabolic disturbances, and only a few studies, which have focused on the in vivo effects of GCs, have been conducted in mice models. Yet, whether the reduced insulin clearance also contributes to the compensatory hyperinsulinemia in GC-treated rodents is not fully understood. Here, we aimed to elucidate whether mice and rats share the pancreatic compensations that result in response to dexamethasone (DEX) treatment and also to identify the possible mechanisms that can explain its effects. Yet, we investigated whether the hyperinsulinemia induced by GC treatment in mice and rats is associated with altered hepatic insulin degrading enzyme (IDE) expression and insulin clearance. For this, male Swiss mice and Wistar rats were treated with the synthetic GC dexamethasone (1 mg/kg b.w.; 5 days). DEX treatment induced IR, hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidemia in both species (there was a higher magnitude in rats), but treatment had a greater effect in rats that had glucose intolerance and increased basal blood glucose compared to the control group. Ex vivo insulin secretion at different glucose concentrations was higher in both groups of DEX-treated rodents compared to their controls. Mice and rats showed a significant increase in ?-cell mass due to increased ?-cell proliferation, which was associated with upregulation of the Ir-?/AKT/mTOR and downregulation of AMPK/ACC/AS160 signaling. Insulin clearance reduced in GC-treated mice and rats, which were associated with reduced hepatic IDE expression. Thus, mice are less vulnerable than rats to the deleterious effect of GCs on glucose homeostasis. In addition, rats and mice share common islet compensations (increased ?-cell function and mass) in response to GC treatment, which were associated with increased canonical and decreased non-canonical insulin signaling. Farther, the reduced insulin clearance in GC-treated rodents was, at least in part, due to reduced hepatic IDE expression, which contributed to the compensatory hyperinsulinemia. These findings corroborate the idea that pharmacological interventions that inhibit hepatic IDE may be an alternative anti-diabetic agent that helps to maintain glucose homeostasis due to hyperinsulinemia instead of hypoglycemic agent, which increase the overload in the ?-cells and may lead to ?-cell failure and DM2 / Doutorado / Fisiologia / Doutor em Biologia Funcional e Molecular

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Apart from CFRD, low cognitive skill index (CSI) was also found in CF patients and was attributed the lacking of vitamin E. Since it is known that insulin plays a role in the learning and memory, decreased plasma insulin level in CF patients is an alternative mechanism for impaired cognitive function. Although numerous studies have found that insulin can improve learning and memory, the mechanism of it is not well understood. In this study, we investigated the effect of insulin on the expression of hippocampal early-phase long-term potentiation (E-LTP) in the immature rats. Hippocampal brain slices were acutely prepared from 10-12 days and 2 months old rats and field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (tEPSCs) were recorded from CA1 region by a multi-electrode in vitro recording system. In the control group, the hippocampal slices of neonatal rats showed no increase in the magnitude of fEPSC after conventional high frequency stimulation (HFS). After pretreatment of the slices with 0.08ng/ml insulin for over one hour, there was no significant change in the magnitude of E-LTP. However, when the insulin concentration increased to 0.8ng/ml, a significant increase in the magnitude of E-LTP was observed. On the contrary, any doses of insulin failed to affect the magnitude of E-LTP of mature rats. These results suggested that insulin could dose-dependently facilitate the production of E-LTP in the hippocampus of infant rats. Application of AG-1024, an inhibitor of insulin receptor, largely abolished the insulin-dependent E-LTP in immature rats rather than adult rats, indicating the involvement of insulin signaling pathway in the insulin effect. On the other hand, increasing the concentration of glucose from 11mM to 22 or 33 mM did not facilitate the E-LTP and application of indinavir, a blocker of insulin-sensitive glucose transporter-4, did not inhibit the effect of insulin. Therefore, it is unlikely that the facilitory action of insulin on E-LTP is via an indirect effect on glucose homeostasis or utilization. Pretreatment with the MAPK pathway inhibitor PD98059 blocked insulin-mediated E-LTP facilitation. Furthermore, the tetanic stimulation induced a significant increase in the level of phosphorylated p42MAPK in the insulin-treated hippocampus than that in the control group. In conclusion, our results suggested that insulin could facilitate the production of hippocampal E-LTP in infant rats, which may play an important role in modulating the expression of LTP in the developing brain and perhaps is an underlying mechanism for the improving effect of insulin on learning and memory. Since insulin plays an important role in the developing brain, perhaps the deficiency of insulin effect resulted from CF patients induces the impairment of cognitive function. / Cystic fibrosis (CF), which is caused by the deficiency of cystic fibrosis transmembrne conductance regulator (CFTR), is the most common autosomal recessive systemic disease with an incidence of 1: 2500 in Caucasians. Cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD), as one of the complications of CF patients, is regarded as one of the leading co-morbidity in CF patients. The mechanism ofCFRD is attributed to the reduced number of islets due to pancreatic fibrosis caused by the loss of CFTR in pancreatic duct. However, the above mechanism failed to explain the dynamics of insulin secretion induced by glucose tolerance test (GTT) in some CF patients and therefore, we were forced to re-consider the mechanism for the pathogenesis of CFRD. Interestingly, the following facts imply that perhaps there is another mechanism for the onset of CFRD: decreased insulin secretion and decreased plasma HCO3 - concentration was observed in the metabolic acidosis disease, plasma HCO3- level increased accompanied by the elevation of plasma insulin after food intake and CFTR accounted for HCO3 - transport in many epithelial cells. These facts promoted us to hypothesize that the loss of HCO3--induced insulin secretion resulting from the deficiency of CFTR is an alternative mechanism for the onset of CFRD. Our results showed that HCO3- could induce insulin secretion of isolated islets from rats. Ca2+ imaging revealed that HCO3- dose-dependently induced an increase in intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+] i) in RIN-5F cells, an insulin-secreting cell line. Removal of extracellular Ca2+ or addition of nifedipine, the blocker of L-type Ca 2+ channel, decreased the effect of HCO3- significantly, indicating the activation of L-type Ca2+ channel during HCO3- stimulation. The inhibitory effect of BaCl2 implied the involvement of K+ channel. The results that HCO3--induced increase in [Ca 2+]i was reduced by PKA inhibitor and sAC blocker demonstrated that the pathway of sAC-cAMP-PKA-ATP-sentitive K+ channel (K ATP channel) was responsible for the effect of HCO3 -. The reduction of extracellular Cl- or the inhibitor of anion exchanger (AE) inhibited the [Ca2+]i increase induced by HCO3- significantly but the omission of external Na+ failed. The facts that CFTR blocker decreased the effect of HCO3- markedly and the expression of CFTR in RIN-5F cells revealed by western blotting suggested the CFTR-mediated HCO3- transport. These results suggested that HCO 3- could induce insulin secretion in a CFTR-dependent manner, which provided a new insight into the understanding of pathogenesis of CFRD and paved the way for the therapy of CFRD. / Zhao, Wenchao. / "November 2010." / Advisers: Chang Chan; Wing Ho Yung. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-04, Section: B, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-138). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.