Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Loss of nerve supply to pancreas islets in dog diabetes
By Gilor, Chen et al.·Published in Scientific reports·2020·Department of Veterinary Medicine and Epidemiology, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Loss of sympathetic innervation to islets of Langerhans in canine diabetes and pancreatitis is not associated with insulitis.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at adult dogs with diabetes and pancreatitis to understand how these conditions affect the pancreas. Researchers found that dogs with diabetes had less nerve supply to the insulin-producing cells in their pancreas, but there was no significant immune cell invasion, which suggests that diabetes may not be caused by an autoimmune reaction. They also noted that pancreatitis could be linked to the development of diabetes in some dogs. More research is needed to fully understand the causes of diabetes in dogs, but these findings indicate that nerve loss and inflammation in the pancreas are important factors.
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Abstract
Canine diabetes mellitus (DM) affects 0.6% of the canine population and yet, its etiology is poorly understood. Most affected dogs are diagnosed as adults and are insulin-dependent. We compared pan-leukocyte and sympathetic innervation markers in pancreatic islets of adult dogs with spontaneous DM (sDM), spontaneous pancreatitis (sPanc), both (sDMPanc), toxin-induced DM (iDM) and controls. We found evidence of decreased islet sympathetic innervation but no significant infiltration of islets with leukocytes in all disease groups. We show that loss of sympathetic innervation is ongoing in canine DM and does not necessarily precede it. We further found selective loss of islet-associated beta cells in dogs with sDM and sDMPanc, suggesting that collateral damage from inflammation in the exocrine pancreas is not a likely cause of DM in these dogs. The cause of this selective loss of beta cells needs to be further elucidated but overall, our findings are not supportive of an autoimmune process as a cause of sDM in adult dogs. The loss of sympathetic innervation in sPanc in dogs that do not suffer from DM links the disease in the exocrine pancreas to a pathological process in the endocrine pancreas, suggesting pancreatitis might be a potential precursor to DM.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33154408/