Background and Objectives: Diabetic corneal morphological changes are frequent. Green tea extract (GTE) is a natural product which was proved to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Adipose mesenchymal stem cells (AMSCs) are commonly used as cellular therapies. The current work aimed to study and compare the effect of AMSCs therapy individually or combined with GTE in keratopathy complicating induced type1 diabetes (T1D) in adult male rats.
Methods and Results: 38 male rats were randomly divided into: In Vitro Study Group: 2 rats for isolation, culture, and label of AMSCs. Control Rats (Group A): consisted of 8 animals.
Induction of diabetes: 28 rats were induced to be diabetic by a single intraperitoneal (IP) injection of 50mg/Kg of streptozotocin (STZ), then after 4 weeks of induction of diabetes they were subdivided into the following groups. Diabetic group (group B): seven animals were left untreated. GTE Group (Group C): seven animals that were given GTE 50 mg/kg daily orally. AMSCs Group (Group D): seven animals that were given intravenous (IV) injection of 1x106 cells (AMSCs). GTE and AMSCs Group (Group E): seven animals that were given a combination of AMSCs injection and GTE. Animals of all groups were sacrificed after 8 weeks from start of experiment. Corneal dimensions, serological, biochemical, morphological, and quantitative studies were performed. Group B revealed inflammatory and degenerative changes in the various layers that regressed by various therapies.
Conclusions: T1D induced corneal inflammatory and degenerative morphological changes. Both GTE and AMSCS proved amelioration of morphological and quantitative parameters, the amelioration was more remarkable in response to AMSCs therapy. Combined GTE and AMSCs therapy guaranteed the most remarkable effect.