Evaluation of Caspase-3 And Vegf Expression in Retinopathy and Nephropathy Diabetic Rats: An Experimental Study

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the timeline of the occurrence of microvascular complications due to diabetes in a diabetic rat model based on caspase-3 and VEGF expression in retinal and renal cells.Method: This study investigated 28 adult male Wistar rats who were given 60 mg/BW streptozotocin (STZ) intravenously.The animal models were terminated after 0-6 weeks regularly. All experimental animals’ retinal and renal tissues were immunohistochemically examined for VEGF and Caspese-3 markers. The results were qualitatively examined using the Kruskal-Wallis test and observed using the post-hoc Mann-WhitneyU test (sig. p<0.05). Furthermore, a one-way ANOVA test was used for retinal cell apoptosis (sig. p<0.05).Results: Significant variations in caspase 3 and VEGF expression were identified between groups in retinal and renal tissue. On the retina, the apoptosis began in the third week and peaked in the fifth (p = ??), then the VEGF expression was highest on the x-weeks. On the renal tissue, the apoptosis started in the fourth week and peaked in the fifth week, particularly in tubular tissue (p0.001), then the greatest VEGF value was achieved with moderate-severe degrees at week 6. Moreover, VEGF expression in renal tissue was not significant in any group (p>0.05). Conclusion: The results showed that apoptosis and possible neovascularization occurred faster in retinal tissue with a higher level of VEGF and Cas-3 expression than in the renal tissue.KEYWORDS: Diabetes mellitus, retinopathy, nephropathy. caspase-3, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor