<p>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.</p> <p>Diabetes mellitus is associated with a reduction
of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity in adipose
tissue and development of hypertriglyceridemia.
To determine how a condition of
severe insulin deficiency affects mammary
gland LPL activity and mRNA expression during
late pregnancy, streptozotocin (STZ) treated
(40 mg/kg) and non-treated (control) virgin
and 20 day pregnant rats were studied. In control
rats, both LPL activity and mRNA were
higher in pregnant than in virgin rats. When
compared to control rats, STZ-treated rats,
either pregnant or virgin, showed decreased
LPL activity and mRNA content. Furthermore,
mammary gland LPL activity was linearly correlated
with mRNA content, and either variable
was linearly correlated with plasma insulin levels. Thus, insulin deficiency impairs the
expression of LPL in mammary glands, revealing
the role of insulin as a modulator of the
enzyme at the mRNA expression level.</p>
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Int J Exp Diabetes Res. 2002; 3(1):61-68