Differential Effects of Chronic Pulsatile versus Chronic Constant Maternal Hyperglycemia on Fetal Pancreatic β-Cells.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Pregnancy Volume 2012, Article ID 812094, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/812094 Research Article Differential Effects of Chronic Pulsatile versus Chronic Constant Maternal Hyperglycemia on Fetal Pancreatic β-Cells Mackenzie S. Frost,1 Aqib H. Zehri,2 Sean W. Limesand,2 William W. Hay Jr.,3 and Paul J. Rozance3 1 Department of Pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA 2 Department of Animal Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA 3 Department of Pediatrics, UCD Perinatal Research Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, 13243 East 23rd Avenue, MS F441, Aurora, CO 80045, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Paul J. Rozance, paul.rozance@ Received 6 August 2012; Accepted 2 October 2012 Academic Editor: Leena Hilakivi-Clarke Copyright © 2012 Mackenzie S. Frost et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Constant maternal hyperglycemia limits, while pulsatile maternal hyperglycemia may enhance, fetal glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) in sheep. However, the impact of such different patterns of hyperglycemia on the development of the fetal β -cell is unknown. We measured the impact of one week of chronic constant hyperglycemia (CHG, n = 6) versus pulsatile hyperglycemia (PHG, n = 5) versus controls (n = 7) on the percentage of the fetal pancreas staining for insulin (β -cell area), mitotic and apoptotic indices and size of fetal β -cells, and fetal insulin secretion in sheep. Baseline insulin concentrations were higher in CHG fetuses (P 0.05) compared to controls and PHG.