Figure 3.

Pretreatment with nCUR prior to STZ challenge protects against elevated blood glucose or insulin and loss of pancreatic islet cell numbers through apoptosis. (A) The blood glucose levels (24, 48 and 72 h) and 72 h plasma insulin level, after injection of STZ, were monitored by glucose strips and elisa kits (n = 6). (B) Pancreatic islets (72 h) were identified by insulin immunofluorescence (red), and apoptotic cells were determined by TUNEL (green); nuclei were visualized by DAPI staining and shown in blue. Images were acquired using EVOIS‐FL microscope at 40x magnification. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM (n = 6). *P < 0.05, treatment groups (STZ + 10CUR, 50CUR, 10nCUR, 50nCUR), significantly different from untreated diabetic controls (STZ); one‐way ANOVA, with Tukey's test.