Body, Heart,
Thyroid Gland and Skeletal Muscle Weight Changes
in Rats with Altered Thyroid Status
T.
SOUKUP, G. ZACHAŘOVÁ, V. SMERDU1, I.
JIRMANOVÁ
Institute
of Physiology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague,
Czech Republic and 1Institute of
Anatomy, Medical Faculty, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Received
August 16, 2001
Accepted September 25, 2001
Summary
In
the present paper we describe changes of
anatomical parameters in inbred Lewis strain
rats, namely their body weight, body weight gain
per week, absolute and relative heart, thyroid
gland and skeletal muscle weights, that are
assumed to reflect experimentally altered thyroid
status. The hyperthyroid state was induced by
DL-thyroxine or Na 3,3',5-triiodo-L-thyronine,
while methimazole was employed for inducing
hypothyroidism. We have found that when compared
to euthyroid rats, hypothyroidism resulted in a
significantly lower body weight gain, absolute
and relative heart weight and, in contrast, in a
significant increase of absolute and relative
thyroid gland weight. On the other hand,
hyperthyroidism led to a significant increase of
absolute and relative heart weight and to a
significant reduction of absolute and relative
thyroid gland weight. However, the body mass was
not significantly altered in hyperthyroidism as
compared with euthyroid rats. We conclude that
our protocol leads to chronic hyper- or
hypothyroidism as demonstrated by body, heart and
thyroid gland weight changes. These anatomical
data can thus be utilized as supplemental
criteria for the assessment of the thyroid state
of experimental rats.
.
Key words
Body weight · Organ weights · Hypothyroidism · Hyperthyroidism · Thyroid state · Skeletal muscles
Reprint
requests
Dr.
T. Soukup, Institute of Physiology, Czech Academy
of Sciences, Vídeňská 1083, CZ-142 20 Prague
4, Czech Republic, e-mail: tmsoukup@biomed.cas.cz
|
