ABSTRACT
The renal, ocular, neural, and other complications in animal diabetes, whether caused by cytotoxic agents, spontaneous autoimmunity, or other etiopathologies, show similarities among the species in their development and histological appearance. Hyperglycemia has now been established as the major culprit of these complications and renal, ocular and nervous tissues are especially prone to diabetic lesions, both in humans and animals, since they are freely glucose penetrable. There are differences in susceptibility to complications in various species, predisposition of cellular sites and differences in the time-course of development of changes. Lesions in animals, though not identical, resemble those of humans, since they share the hyperglycemia-linked causation particularly in the initial stages of their development. The background of a similar pathogenic milieu provides excellent opportunities for a study of the mechanisms, which are most probably common to animals and humans. Extensive information on diabetes induced lesions in various animals has been surveyed in the past (Salans and Graham, 1982; Shafrir and Renold, 1984; Shafrir and Renold, 1988; Velasquez et al, 1990; Winegrad, 1987; Robison and Laver, 1993; Sima et al., 1992). We shall present here an updated review on the lesions in animals with cytotoxic and spontaneous diabetes.
