Author(s)

Li Qian, Huani Chen, Man Zhang, Duankai Chen, Yan Jiang, Qiang Tang, Yawen Su, Qianli Tang

Corresponding Author

Qianli Tang

ABSTRACT

It has been reported that the hyperlipidemic silkworms are useful for evaluating the hypoglycemic activities of candidate drugs against type II diabetes. At present, the accepted simulation method is the combination of high-fat diet and streptozotocin, which is the surgical removal of foot skin induced by common foot ulcer models in mice. Is it possible to use silkworm to establish diabetic foot animal model in combination with the above methods? We found that it can cause skin necrosis of the feet by pierce silkworm feet with surgical needles. This necrosis can be aggravated by further feeding with high sugar diet. After G.D (feed contains 7.5% glucose) treatment, 26.88% of the patients in the high sugar control group and 10% in the N.D (Feed does not contain glucose) group. In order to further understand the mechanism of skin necrosis of foot induced by glucose healing, Lable-free quantitative proteomics analysis is used to detect differential protein between G.D groups and N.D groups. Glucose significantly increased the risk of diabetic foot in silkworm, which was 2.5 times higher than that in blank control group. Through proteomic analysis, the mechanism may be through the effects of glucose induced high expression of carbonic anhydrase 7 (CA7), which blocking the binding of TGF-beta to receptors, slowed down the healing of silkworm foot skin. This will provide a low-cost animal model for screening diabetic foot drugs or therapies, and will be conducive to overcoming diabetic foot.

KEYWORDS

Low-Cost Animal Models, Diabetic Foot Ulcers, Silkworm, Proteomics, Signaling Pathways