ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Diabetic cardiomyopathy, a serious complication of diabetes, is an important factor of increased mortality in patients with diabetes. Therefore, providing an effective experimental animal model is particularly important for studying the pathogenesis and treatment methods of diabetic cardiomyopathy. OBJECTIVE:To explore the method of establishing Wistar rat models of diabetic cardiomyopathy. METHODS:Forty rats were randomly divided into the control group (n=10) and diabetic cardiomyopathy group (n=30). The rats in the diabetic cardiomyopathy group were intraperitonealy injected with 60 mg/kg streptozotocin at a time to establish rat models of diabetic cardiomyopathy. The rats in the control group were given the same dosage of citric acid buffer by the same way. The rats in these two groups were al fed with non-fat high-sugar normal diet. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with the control group, after 3 weeks of injection with streptozotocinin in rat models of diabetic cardiomyopathy, blood glucose level was significantly increased, myocardial cels arranged in disorder, the nuclei were of different sizes, colagen content in the myocardial tissue was significantly increased, and colagen fibers were thick and disordered. In addition, the mRNA and protein levels of transforming growth factorβ1 and type I colagen, two indices reflecting myocardial fibrosis, were markedly increased. These results indicate that intraperitonealy injecting large doses of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg) at a time and feeding with non-fat high-sugar normal diet could establish a stable rat model of type 1 diabetic cardiomyopathy. This method is safe and effective with high feasibility.