Abstract:

Objective    To investigate the immunoloregulation effects of early intensive insulin therapy on T lymphocyte subgroups in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Methods    Thirty (12-14 weeks old)female NOD mice were randomly divided into the early intensive therapy(EIT) group, the early conventional therapy(ECT) group, the late intensive therapy(LIT) group, the late conventional therapy(LCT) group, and the no-therapy (DM)group. Also, age-matched female NOD mice, without the advent of diabetes, were included in the study as the normal control (NC) group. The changes of weight and blood glucose in the EIT group and other groups were observed and the ratio of T lymphocytes of spleen and thymus was analyzed by flow cytometer. Results    The weight of the EIT group increased with age compared with that in the LIT,  LCT and DM groups (P<0.001) and the average 24-hour blood glucose was sustained at (5.758±1.515) mmol/L, which was significantly lower than that in the LIT, LCT and DM groups(P<0.001) but was higher than that in the NC group. As for the T cells from the spleen, the percentage in the EIT group of CD4+ and CD3+ was low, and CD4+/CD8+ ratio significantly decreased compared with those of LCT and DM groups(all P<0.001). Compared with LIT, LCT and DM groups, the percentage of CD4+CD8- T cells from thymus in the EIT group was significantly lower(all P<0.001), while CD4+CD8+ was markedly higher(all P<0.001). Conclusions    Early intensive insulin therapy can effectively control blood glucose, keep normal weight gain, and decrease the host autoimmunity, which relate to the changes of T lymphocytes subsets.

Key words: Early intensive therapy;  Insulin;  Immunoloregulation; Spleen; thymus； NOD mice