Effects of withdrawal of glucocorticoids on improving the function and enzymatic activities of liver mitochondria in female diabetic rats.

In the present work the effects of corticosterone restitution were examined in female rats with chronic streptozotocin (SZ)-induced diabetes upon intact liver mitochondrial function and the activities of 3-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (HBD), succinate dehydrogenase (SD) and cytochrome c oxidase (Cox) of the ruptured organelle. The liver mitochondrial function was analyzed by the respiration and the osmotic oscillatory behaviour. Respiration was measured by polarographic method and both the state 3 of active respiration (S3) and the respiratory control (RC) were determined using the following substrates: 3-hydroxybutyrate, succinate and malate-glutamate. The oscillatory behaviour was measured using as parameters the damping factors (DF) which are the ratios of amplitudes of two consecutive peaks or troughs of the spectrophotometrical tracings of this phenomenon. A group of control normal rats (N) and the following three groups of diabetic rats were studied: controls (D), adrenalectomized (D + ADX) and adrenalectomized with corticosterone restitution (D + ADX + C). The results of mitochondrial respiration showed that the mean values of S3 and RC decreased with the three substrates in the group D + ADX + C compared with D + ADX group (p < 0.001). This group demonstrated a significant increase of S3 and RC values of the respiration compared with the D group. The oscillatory behaviour of liver mitochondria of D + ADX + C group demonstrated a significant increase in the DF of peaks and troughs compared with D + ADX group. The values of DF of the latter group were not significantly different from the N group. The behaviour of the enzymes activities of ruptured liver mitochondria were different for each enzyme in the different groups of treated rats. Thus, in the D + ADX + C group the mean value of the activity of HBD significantly decreased, that of the Cox increased (p < 0.02) and that of SD did not show any variation compared with the corresponding values of the D + ADX group. Likewise, the mean value of HBD activity in this latter group was similar to that of the N group and that of Cox activity was lesser (p < 0.01) than that of the D group. The conclusion is drawn that corticosterone has significant additional diabetogenic effects upon biochemical functions of liver mitochondria in the SZ-induced diabetic state which could occur through the hormone cellular receptors.