Animal Models of Diabetic Macrovascular Complications: Key Players in the Development of New Therapeutic Approaches

Table 1

Physiological differences between human, mouse, and rat relevant for the study of diabetic vascular complications.

Characteristic	Human	Mouse	Rat
Life span (years)	~80	~2-3	~2-3
Heart rate (beats/minute)	60–80	>400	~400
Blood glucose (mmol/L)	4.4–6.1	3.5–11.9	3.9–11.5
Blood pressure (mm Hg)	90–119/60–79	113–147/81–106	75–120/60–90
ALT (IU/L)	5–50	20–90	18–45
AST (IU/L)	6–40	90–100	74–143
Plasma cholesterol (mmol/L)	3.0–6.5	1.0–5.3	1.0–3.8
Dominant lipoprotein	LDL	HDL	HDL
Cholesterol synthesis (mg/day/kg)	10 [111]	160 [111]	70 [112]
Hepatic LDL clearance (mL/day/kg)	12 [111]	400–500 [111]	220 [112]
ApoB subtypes in liver	B100	B48 and B100	B48 and B100
Apo(a) expression	Yes	No	No
CETP	Yes	No	No
Major acute phase protein	CRP, SAA	SAA, SAP	A2M, HAPT
Diameter of the atherosclerosis-prone arteries (mm)
Ascending aorta	29–33 [113, 114]	1.2–1.5 [115]	3.1–3.7 [116]
Left main coronary artery	~4 [114]	0.1–0.16 [54, 117, 118]	0.1–2.4
Carotid artery	6–8 [114]	0.45–0.55 [119, 120]	0.9
Brachiocephalic trunk	~12 [114]	~0.5 [121]	~1.0

A2M, alpha-2-macroglobulin; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; Apo, apolipoprotein; CETP, cholesteryl ester transfer protein; CRP, C-reactive protein; HAPT, haptoglobin; HDL, high-density lipoprotein; LDL, low-density lipoprotein; SAA, serum amyloid A; SAP, serum amyloid P. Additional mouse phenotype data can be found at MPD. Values were obtained from the specified references, from the Mouse Phenome Database (MPD; http://phenome.jax.org), and from unpublished data by the authors.