Leprdb db db mice

Lepr^db (db/db) mice and age- and gender-matched controls (db/+) (Jackson Laboratories, Bar Harbor, ME) were used for the study. All animal procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and in accordance with the guidelines of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology statements for the “Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research”.

C57BL/6J mice and Lepr^db (db/db) mice were purchased from the Jackson Laboratory (no. 000697). Glp1r^−/− mice were kindly provided by D. Drucker (University of Toronto, Canada). All wildtype and knockout mice used in our studies were in-house bred on a C57BL/6J background. Mice were double-housed and kept in a constant environment with the ambient temperature set to 22 ± 2 °C with constant humidity (45–65%) and a 12 h/12 h light/dark cycle with lights off from 06:00 until 18:00. For studies in DIO mice, male C57BL/6J mice were fed with a high-fat diet comprising 58% kilocalories from fat (D12331, Research Diets). db/db mice were fed with a normal chow diet (T1314, Altromin GmbH) throughout the study. At the beginning of each experiment, mice were equally distributed into experimental groups according to their body weight and body composition. All animal studies were approved by the State of Bavaria, Germany, or the Insitutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Cincinnati, OH, USA and conducted on the basis of the underlying animal welfare law of the respective countries. Compounds were dissolved in PBS and were s.c. administered with a volume of 5 μl g⁻¹ body weight in the indicated doses between 15:00 and 16:00.