Investigation of the effects of carvacrol on insulin, Pİ3K/AKT pathway and GLUT-2 expression in pancreatic cells in A streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat model

Diabetes Mellitus is an important disease with a rapidly increasing incidence in the world every year due to malnutrition, inactivity and obesity in addition to genetic predisposition. Complications caused by diabetes should be controlled with treatment because it reduces the quality of life. The antidiabetic property of Carvacrol found in thyme oil has been shown in previous studies. However, it is not known through which pathway Carvacrol exerts this effect in pancreatic tissue. Therefore, in our study; in order to investigate the blood glucose lowering effect of CRV and the mechanism by which it achieves this effect, we aimed to show the PI3K/Akt pathway, the expression change of Glut-2 and Insulin proteins in pancreatic tissue by immunohistochemical methods. For this purpose, 40 Wistar Albino rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: Sham, Control CRV 40, STZ, STZ+CRV 40, STZ+CRV 20. At the beginning of the experiment, 55 mg/kg STZ was administered intraperitoneally to the diabetic groups. CRV was administered by gavage at the indicated doses for 6 weeks. During the experiment, blood glucose levels and body weights of the rats were measured regularly. As a result of the experiment, a statistically significant decrease in blood glucose level was detected in the STZ+CRV 20 and STZ+CRV 40 groups compared to the STZ group. It was found that the administration of CRV at a dose of 20 mg/kg for 6 weeks to the diabetic group was more effective in reducing blood glucose levels. We demonstrated by immunohistochemical methods that the decreased PI3K, pAkt, Glut-2 and Insulin protein expressions in the diabetic group increased significantly with the administration of 20 mg/kg Carvacrol. We concluded that Carvacrol exerts its blood glucose lowering effect by increasing Glut-2 and insulin expression in pancreatic tissue via the PI3K/Akt pathway.