title: Development of diabetic nephropathy in nude mice.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Immune dysfunction is very common in diabetes mellitus (DM). However, there is no evidence whether such immune dysfunction can influence the development of DM, especially the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the influence of absence of T cells on DN.
  
  
  METHODS
  Balb/c nude mice and Balb/c wild-type nude (WT) mice were injected with streptozotocin (STZ). Serum tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), blood glucose, body weight, urine albumin/creatinine ratio and rate of kidney weight to body weight (KW/BW) were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After modeling, there was no difference of blood glucose level between nude mice and WT mice except at week 2 (28.3 ± 4.9 mmol/l vs 23.1 ± 3.9 mmol/l, p<0.01). At week 4, the serum TNF- α level of nude mice got to 175.08 ± 46.03 pg/ml (p<0.05, compared with baseline level 80.19 ± 8.46 pg/ml), whereas the TNF- α levels of WT mice was stable. At week 4, the body weight of nude mice was lower than that of WT mice (14.7 ± 3.15 g vs 17.97 ± 2.85 g, p<0.05); the urine albumin/creatinine ratio (Alb/Cr) of nude mice was higher than that of WT mice (50.96 ± 5.57 mg/mmol vs 41.09 ± 5.79 mg/mmol, p<0.05); the kidney weight to body weight of nude mice was higher than that of WT mice (0.01352 ± 0.00163 vs 0.01173 ± 0.00131, p<0.05). Correlation analysis showed urine Alb/Cr positively correlated with serum TNF-α level at week 4 (r = 0.588, p<0.01). At week 4, the increase of type IV collagen in the glomeruli was more prominent in diabetic nude mice than in diabetic WT mice (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Absence of T cells in DM might influence the development of DN.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology, General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300052, China. linshan@medmail.com.cn.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Q E
authors.initials: QE
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: J Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Z H
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Z F
authors.initials: ZF
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: W Y
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Shang
mesh_terms: D000419:Albuminuria / Q000652:urine; D000818:Animals; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D001835:Body Weight; D003404:Creatinine / Q000652:urine; D003921:Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology*; D007668:Kidney / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008819:Mice, Nude; D009929:Organ Size; D013311:Streptozocin; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000502:physiology; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D013311:Streptozocin; D003404:Creatinine