Investigation of the Protective Effects of Taurine against Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Retinal Changes via Electroretinogram and Retinal Histology with New Zealand White Rabbits

Unconventional avenues to decelerated diabetic retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is an important microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus (DM), causing significant visual impairment worldwide. Current gold standards for retarding the progress of DR include blood sugar control and regular fundus screening. Despite these measures, the incidence and prevalence of DR and vision-threatening DR remain high. Given its slowly progressive course and long latent period, opportunities to contain or slow DR before it threatens vision must be explored. This narrative review assesses the recently described unconventional strategies to retard DR progression. These include gut-ocular flow, gene therapy, mitochondrial dysfunction-oxidative stress, stem cell therapeutics, neurodegeneration, anti-inflammatory treatments, lifestyle modification, and usage of phytochemicals. These therapies impact DR directly, while some of them also influence DM control. Most of these strategies are currently in the preclinical stage, and clinical evidence remains low. Nevertheless, our review suggests that these approaches have the potential for human use to prevent the progression of DR.

Phytochemicals: Target-Based Therapeutic Strategies for Diabetic Retinopathy

Background: A variety of causative factors are involved in the initiation of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Current antidiabetic therapies are expensive and not easily accessible by the public. Furthermore, the use of multiple synthetic drugs leads to severe side effects, which worsen the diabetic patient’s condition. Medicinal plants and their derived phytochemicals are considered safe and effective treatment and their consumption can reduce the DR risk. In this article, we discuss a variety of medicinal plants, and their noteworthy bio-active constituents, that will be utilized as target based therapeutic strategies for DR. Methods: A broad-spectrum study was conducted using published English works in various electronic databases including Science Direct, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Results: Targeting the multiple pathological factors including ROS, AGEs formation, hexosamine flux, PARP, PKC, and MAPK activation through variety of bioactive constituents in medicinal plants, diabetes progression can be delayed with improved loss of vision. Conclusions: Data reveals that traditional herbs and their prominent bioactive components control and normalize pathological cellular factors involved in DR progression. Therefore, studies should be carried out to explore the protective retinopathy effects of medicinal plants using experimental animal and humans models.

Effects and Mechanisms of Taurine as a Therapeutic Agent

Taurine is an abundant, β-amino acid with diverse cytoprotective activity. In some species, taurine is an essential nutrient but in man it is considered a semi-essential nutrient, although cells lacking taurine show major pathology. These findings have spurred interest in the potential use of taurine as a therapeutic agent. The discovery that taurine is an effective therapy against congestive heart failure led to the study of taurine as a therapeutic agent against other disease conditions. Today, taurine has been approved for the treatment of congestive heart failure in Japan and shows promise in the treatment of several other diseases. The present review summarizes studies supporting a role of taurine in the treatment of diseases of muscle, the central nervous system, and the cardiovascular system. In addition, taurine is extremely effective in the treatment of the mitochondrial disease, mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS), and offers a new approach for the treatment of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, and inflammatory diseases, such as arthritis. The review also addresses the functions of taurine (regulation of antioxidation, energy metabolism, gene expression, ER stress, neuromodulation, quality control and calcium homeostasis) underlying these therapeutic actions.

Experimental diabetes induced by alloxan and streptozotocin: The current state of the art

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder with a high prevalence worldwide. Animal models of diabetes represent an important tool in diabetes investigation that helps us to avoid unnecessary and ethically challenging studies in human subjects, as well as to obtain a comprehensive scientific viewpoint of this disease. Although there are several methods through which diabetes can be induced, chemical methods of alloxan- and streptozotocin-induced diabetes represent the most important and highly preferable experimental models for this pathological condition. Therefore, the aim of this article was to review the current knowledge related to quoted models of diabetes, including to this point available information about mechanism of action, particular time- and dose-dependent protocols, frequent problems, as well as major limitations linked to laboratory application of alloxan and sterptozotocin in inducing diabetes. Given that diabetes is known to be closely associated with serious health consequences it is of fundamental importance that current animal models for induction of diabetes should be continuously upgraded in order to improve overall prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this pathological condition.

Insight into biological system responses in goldfish (Carassius auratus) to multiple doses of avermectin exposure by integrated1H NMR-based metabolomics

AVM disturbed the metabolomic profiles of goldfish dose-dependently, affecting the metabolic pathways related with its toxicity.