Diabetes, Vol 48, Issue 1 43-49, Copyright © 1999 by American Diabetes Association
Recombinant human platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase reduces the frequency of diabetes in the diabetes-prone BB rat
ES Lee, J Jiang, GC Sund, WT Simonson, J Graham, G Dietsch, B Schimpf, S Bieg, G Peterman and A Lernmark
Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, USA.
Platelet-activating factor (PAF) has been implicated in the development of
type 1 diabetes. Our previous studies have suggested that PAF inhibitors
reduce insulitis and the frequency of diabetes in BB rats. In this study,
serum PAF levels were reduced to address the hypothesis that PAF is
important for the development of insulitis. From the age of 35 days on,
DP-BB rats were treated with human recombinant PAF acetylhydrolase
(rPAF-AH), which efficiently inactivates PAF. Our data indicate that
intraperitoneal injections of rPAF-AH reduce the incidence of diabetes in
the DP-BB rat. Daily intraperitoneal injections of 6.0 mg/kg body wt
rPAF-AH reduced the frequency of diabetes in saline-injected rats from 90%
(27/30) to 57% (17/30) (P = 0.004). As found by morphometric analysis on
pancreatic islets, DP-BB rats protected from diabetes had less severe
degrees of insulitis in a dose-dependent manner. DP-BB rats protected by
rPAF-AH also had a higher percentage of insulin-positive cells in pancreas
sections compared with those from diabetic animals. We therefore speculated
that the beta-cells were protected from insulitis by rPAF-AH.