STZ-Induced Diabetic Mice Treatment

Six-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were supplied by the Orient Bio Inc (Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, Korea). Animals were maintained at animal facilities at the Lee Gil Ya Cancer and Diabetes Institute, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, under a 12-h light, 12-h dark photoperiod. All animal experiments were carried out under a protocol approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (LCDI-2012-0029) at Lee Gil Ya Cancer and Diabetes Institute, Gachon University. After a week of adaptation, mice were injected intraperitoneally with 50 mg/kg/day STZ for five consecutive days. Age-matched control mice received an equal volume of vehicle. After one week after the fifth STZ injection, blood glucose levels were checked, and mice with blood glucose levels over 300 mg/dL were used for experiments. STZ-induced diabetic mice were treated orally with PCS extract (500 mg/kg/day) or vehicle (daily for 8 weeks), as described previously [18 (link),20 (link)]. Losartan potassium (Sigma-Aldrich) was orally administered (10 mg/kg/day) for 8 weeks as a positive control.