The effect of alloxan diabetes upon adjuvant-induced arthritis in the rat

Abstract

Abstract THE relation between inflammation and carbohydrate metabolism has been the subject of several investigations using acute inflammatory models such as the anaphylactoid reaction in the rat (Adamkiewicz & Adamkiewicz, 1959; 1960) and true anaphylaxis in the rat and mouse (Kraus, 1964; Gulbenkian, Yanell Grasso & Tabachnick, 1967; Dhar, Sanyal & West, 1967). These acute inflammatory reactions are depressed by the hyperglycaemia produced by alloxan (Adamkiewicz & Adamkiewicz, 1959; 1960), by 2-deoxyglucose (Goth, 1959), by glucose loading (Dhar & others, 1967) and by glucagon (Lefebvre & Van Cauwenberge, 1962). Using the model of “adjuvant arthritis” in the rat, produced by the injection of Freund's adjuvant (Pearson, 1956), Kellett (1965) showed that this chronic arthritic condition was also suppressed when alloxan diabetes was induced in rats before an injection of adjuvant. The syndrome of adjuvant arthritis occurs in two phases, firstly an acute inflammatory oedema at the injection site which is followed after a latent period of about ten days by a secondary, chronic polyarthritis involving all limbs and the tail. Because of the biphasic course of the inflammation, and the possible dependence of the chronic phase on the prior appearance of an adequate initial phase, we decided to investigate the effect of alloxan diabetes induced at various times during the development of the adjuvant arthritic syndrome.