Jun Lu1,2, Beau Pontre3, Stephen
Pickup4, Bernard SY Choong1, Mingming Li1,
Hong Xu5, Anthony RJ Phillips1, Garth JS Cooper6,
Alistair A. Young7
1School of Biological Sciences,
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; 2NCIECP, Auckland
University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand; 3Centre for
Advance MRI, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; 4Department
of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 5Chemistry
& Chemical Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China; 6Department
of Pharmacology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom; 7Department
of Physiology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
End
stage diabetes is often associated with heart failure, which is the leading cause
of death. We are the first to investigate the heart function in STZ-induced
diabetic rats longitudinally with and without triethylenetetramine (TETA)
treatment using High Field MRI. Gradient echo cine method was used to
determine cardiac function. We found that the cardiac ejection fraction
decreased with prolonged diabetic status and oral TETA treatment improves
ejection fraction in diabetic rats. The results suggest that TETA treatment
is beneficial to diabetic heart failure and warrant further clinical
investigation.