Gluc-HET, a complementary chick embryo model for the characterization of antidiabetic compounds

PLoS One. 2017 Aug 4;12(8):e0182788. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182788. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Insulin resistance and β cell failure are the main causes of elevated blood glucose levels in Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a complex and multifactorial metabolic disease. Several medications to treat or reduce the symptoms of T2DM are used, including the injection of insulin and the application of insulin sensitizing or glucose production reducing drugs. Furthermore, the use of phytochemicals has attracted increasing attention for the therapy and prevention of T2DM. In order to identify and characterize antidiabetic compounds, efficient test systems are required. Here we present a modified chick embryo model (hens egg test, HET), which has originally been developed to determine the potential irritancy of chemicals, as a versatile tool for the characterization of phytochemicals with antidiabetic properties. We termed this modified assay variation Gluc-HET. More precisely, we determined the influence of variations in the incubation time of the fertilized eggs and studied the effects of different buffer parameters, such as the temperature, composition and volume, used for drug application. In addition, we tested several putative antidiabetic plant extracts, which have been identified in an in-vitro primary screening procedure, for their effectiveness in reducing blood glucose levels in-ovo. Taken together, our Gluc-HET model has proven to be a reliable and manageable system for the characterization of antidiabetic compounds.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blood Glucose / analysis
  • Chick Embryo
  • Chickens
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental / drug therapy*
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / drug therapy*
  • Female
  • Hypoglycemic Agents / pharmacology*
  • Phytochemicals / pharmacology*
  • Plant Extracts / pharmacology*

Substances

  • Blood Glucose
  • Hypoglycemic Agents
  • Phytochemicals
  • Plant Extracts

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG; project number 850681) and University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria Basic Funding initiative (project GlucoSTAR). Klaus Schröder is employed by NP Life Science Technologies KG and Marcus Iken is employed by PM-International AG. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for some authors, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.