Assessment of aging-related genes expression in liver tissue of type-2 diabetic male rats

Abstract

Diabetes is one of the most common metabolic disorders worldwide that has multiple complications on different organs of the body. One of the organs that is mainly affected by diabetes is the liver. Due to the important role of liver in the body, liver disorders are considered as an important cause of mortality in type 2 diabetes. Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain liver damage in diabetes, but many of them are ambiguous and the exact mechanisms are still unclear. A detailed understanding of these mechanisms is very important for the development of effective treatments to reduce liver complications in diabetic patients. Hepatocyte aging plays a key role in the progression of liver disease. Therefore, in the present study, we decided to investigate the effect of type 2 diabetes on the expression of aging-related genes in the liver tissue of male rats. Methods: sixteen male rats were randomly divided into two groups: control and diabetic. Diabetes was induced by high-fat diet and intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ) at a dose of 35 mg/kg. Two months after diabetes induction, the animals were anesthetized with ketamine xylazine. The liver tissue was sampled to measure the levels of ß-Galactosidase, Klotho, and SOX2 using real-time PCR assay. In addition, IL-1β were measured by ELISA kits. Results: According to the findings of this study, the liver tissue in the diabetic group showed pathological changes compared to the control group. Moreover, the level of IL-1β in diabetic group was significantly higher than that of the control group. Gene expression analysis showed that the relative expression of the Klotho and SOX2 genes was significantly lower in the diabetic group than in the control group, while the expression of the β-galactosidase gene was significantly higher in the diabetic group than in the control group.