Teodoro João Soeiro, Gomes Ana Patrícia, Varela Ana Teresa, Duarte Filipe Valente, Rolo Anabela Pinto, Palmeira Carlos Marques
a Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology , Department of Life Sciences of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra , Coimbra , Portugal.
Toxicol Mech Methods. 2016 Nov;26(9):650-657. doi: 10.1080/15376516.2016.1222643. Epub 2016 Oct 28.
Diabetes and associated conditions are now considered a worldwide epidemic, with increasing costs and burdens with no cure yet developed. The chitin-derived glucosamine biopolymer chitosan has shown promising results when supplied to diabetic patients. However, no study has investigated the possible toxic side effects of chitosan treatments, in particular when regarding the most important bioenergetic organelle, mitochondria. As such, we aimed to understand if supplementation of chitosan to the diet of normal and diabetic rats could compromise mitochondrial function on two of the major organs involved in diabetes, obesity, and metabolic regulation, the liver and skeletal muscle. We supplemented the drinking water of normal Wistar and diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats with 0.5% chitosan for 6 weeks. We show here that, in terms of hepatic bioenergetics, chitosan was relatively inert and had no major side effects. However, regarding skeletal muscle bioenergetics, chitosan significantly affected various bioenergetic parameters. As such, we conclude that chitosan, at the tested doses, is relatively safe for treatment of diabetic situations. Nonetheless, the potential for adverse toxicological side effects appears to be present, which might be relevant if higher doses are utilized.
糖尿病及相关病症目前被视为一种全球性流行病，其成本和负担不断增加，且尚未开发出治愈方法。几丁质衍生的葡糖胺生物聚合物壳聚糖在应用于糖尿病患者时已显示出有前景的结果。然而，尚无研究调查壳聚糖治疗可能产生的毒副作用，尤其是涉及最重要的生物能量细胞器——线粒体时。因此，我们旨在了解在正常大鼠和糖尿病大鼠的饮食中补充壳聚糖是否会损害糖尿病、肥胖症和代谢调节所涉及的两个主要器官——肝脏和骨骼肌的线粒体功能。我们用0.5%的壳聚糖补充正常Wistar大鼠和糖尿病Goto-Kakizaki大鼠的饮用水，持续6周。我们在此表明，就肝脏生物能量学而言，壳聚糖相对惰性，没有重大副作用。然而，关于骨骼肌生物能量学，壳聚糖显著影响了各种生物能量参数。因此，我们得出结论，在测试剂量下，壳聚糖对糖尿病情况的治疗相对安全。尽管如此，似乎存在潜在的不良毒副作用，如果使用更高剂量，可能会产生影响。
