Histomorphometric and Immunohistochemical Study Comparing the Effect of Diabetes Mellitus on the Acini of the Sublingual and Submandibular Salivary Glands of Albino Rats

AIM: This study was designed to compare the effect of diabetes on the mucous and seromucous acini of the sublingual (SLG) and the submandibular (SMG) salivary glands of albino rats, respectively. METHODS: Twenty male albino rats were assigned into two groups; control and diabetic. Three months following the induction of diabetes mellitus (DM), both the SMG and the SLG glands were removed, randomly sectioned and stained with hematoxylin and eosin to estimate the volume-weighted mean volume of the acini of both glands together with examining their morphology. Furthermore, immunohistochemistry was done to examine the expression of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in both of them. RESULTS: We found that, unlike the SMG acinar cells, diabetes appeared not to affect both the morphology and the volume of the SLG acini. Interestingly, PCNA expression in diabetic SMG glands acini was significantly higher than diabetic SLG glands acini. Furthermore, we found that the expression pattern of PCNA was significantly higher between the control and diabetic groups in both glands. CONCLUSION: We concluded that the mucous acini of the SLG glands are less affected by the oxidative damage induced by DM.