An experimental study of apoptosis of the intervertebral disc cells of diabetic rats / 中华骨科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the apoptosis of the intervertebral disc cells and its related factors. Methods Thirty-six 4 months old male Sprague-Dawley(SD) rats weighing 230-261 g were randomly divided into streptozotocin (STZ)-induced group and control group. There were 18 rats in each group. The diabetes mellitus (DM) was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ solution (40 mg/kg), while in the control group, the same volume of the sodium citrate buffer was injected. The blood glucose level was measured 72 hours later by testing the blood samples from the tail vein. The standard for the diabetes mellitus was above 16.7 mmol/L. The rats were sacrificed 1, 3 and 4 months later with 6 at each time interval in two groups respectively. One lumbar intervertebral disc was obtained for the measurement of the apoptotic percentage with the flow cytometry, two discs for the measurement of the pentosidine with high performance liquid chromatography for each rat. Results The blood glucose levels of all the rats in the STZ-induced group were above 16.7mmol/L [(23.71?2.69) mmol/L] and was significantly higher than those of the control rats(P