Summary. Arterial ultrastructure was examined in twelve untreated streptozotocin-diabetic rats. Five showed severe changes in muscular (coronary, tibial, pulmonary) arteries two months after induction of diabetes. The basement membrane of smooth muscle cells was patchily thickened in these arteries. No similar changes were seen in muscular arteries of the other seven diabetic rats or in 10 control rats. No lesions were found in elastic arteries (aorta, main pulmonary artery) of any diabetic or control animals. Plasma non-esterified fatty acids, total ketone bodies, and glucose levels were higher in the diabetic rats with arterial changes (p <0.01) than in the diabetic animals without such changes. The molar ratio of non-esterified fatty acid to albumin in plasma ranged between 2.3-3.3 in the diabetic rats with arterial lesions, 1.4-1.8 in those without such features, and 0.6-1.1 in the controls. The excess of nonesterified fatty acid in plasma during insulin deficiency could be an important factor in the initiation of arterial changes in this model of experimental diabetes.Key words: Arterial wall, streptozotocin, diabetes, rat, electron microscopy, non-esterified fatty acids, basement membrane thickening The initial changes in the early stages of diabetes are of a biochemical nature, involving carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism [1]. These become manifest as structural abnormalities, mainly vascular, later in the course of the disease.The morphology of vascular disease in diabetes depends on the size of the vessels. Capillaries and arterioles develop so-called microangiopathy changes in man [2] and rat ]3], whereas atherosclerosis-like lesions or macroangiopathy are seen in larger vessels, especially in medium-sized or muscular arteries [4]. On the other hand, it has been suggested that no significant difference is found in the severity of "atherosclerosis" between diabetics and non-diabetics, if other risk factors as hypertension and high serum lipid levels [5,6] are taken into account. On the whole, the reasons for vascular complications in the diabetic state are still not clear.Recently we found triglyceride deposits in medial smooth muscle cells of muscular arteries in shortterm diabetic rats [7,8]. The aim of this study was to examine the ultrastructure of muscular and elastic arteries in longer-term untreated diabetic rats paying special attention to possible atherosclerosis-like features.
Materials and Methods
Animals and Model of DiabetesDiabetes was induced in 35 male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 280-360 g by means of an intracardiac injection [9] of streptozotocin in a dose of 65 mg/kg of body weight (Upjohn & Co., lot 1614E MCM 3), 3 g/100 ml in a solution freshly prepared in 0.1 tool/1 citrate buffer, pH 4.5, administered while the rat was under pentobarbitone anaesthesia. Ten rats of the same strain, used as control animals, received an equal volume of buffer solution intracardially. The animals were fed ad libitum on a normal chow containing 53% carbohydrate, 21% protein, 5% fat, 4% fibre a...