Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that vascular endothelium may be the first link of insulin resistance.
OBJECTIVE: To establish insulin resistance models of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) induced by hyperinsulinsm.
METHODS: HUVECs were chosen as the research object and were incubated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle’s medium with different concentrations of insulin (50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 1, 0.1, 0.01 U/L) for 12, 24, 36, 48, 72 hours. Normal group was set. The change of cellular form was observed under optical microscope, and the cell viability in each group was determined by MTT. Glucose oxidizes peroxides was done to evaluate whether the insulin resistance model was successfully prepared.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Compared with the normal group, the morphology of HUVECs incubated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle’s medium containing insulin more than 40 U/L for more than 48 hours was badly damaged and the cell viability decreased significantly (P < 0.01). When the concentration of insulin was less than 20 U/L, and incubated time was less than 36 hours, no significantly damage was found in the cellular form, the cell viability decreased but not significantly (P > 0.05). The results of glucose oxidizes peroxides showed that the glucose content in the culture medium in which HUVECs were incubated with 30 U/L insulin for 48 hours was higher than that in the normal group significantly (P﹤0.01). These findings indicate that HUVECs incubated in the culture medium containing 30 U/L insulin for 48 hours can present with insulin resistance.