ANALYSIS OF THE ENDOCRINE PANCREAS IN ADULT LIFE OF RATS WITH INTRAUTERINE GROWTH RESTRICTION

• Grant number: 24/01595-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2024
• End date: April 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Maternal and Child Health
• Principal Investigator: Débora Cristina Damasceno
• Grantee: Júlia Cardoso Peres
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FMB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome characterized by hyperglycemia resulting from a lack of insulin due to autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta(²) cells or insulin resistance in peripheral tissues, leading to the exhaustion of these cells responsible for the synthesis and secretion of insulin. Uncontrolled maternal diabetes is widely used as a model to cause fetal growth restriction in laboratory animals. Therefore, the objective of this project will be to evaluate in adult life immunolocalization of endocrine-pancreatic hormones (insulin, glucagon and somatostatin) in a model of rats born with growth restriction. For this purpose, non-diabetic (control) and growth-restricted (restricted) Sprague-Dawley rats aged 120 days (adulthood) from mothers with severe diabetes (= glycemia greater than 300 mg/dL) were used to obtain pancreas samples. Histological sections of the endocrine pancreas from both groups of rats will be processed for common microscopy (H&E) analysis to evaluate the pancreatic islet area and immunohistochemistry for analysis of cells immunostained by insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin. The comparison of the data obtained will be carried out using Student's t-test, considering p< 0.05 as the limit of statistical significance. The project was approved by the Ethics Committee on the Use of Animals (CEUA) of the Botucatu Medical School, Unesp (Protocol Number: 1341/2019).