Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is a serious illness whose incidence is rising worldwide. The beginnings of research into this disease date back to the 17th century, but the breakthrough discovery dates back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries when insulin was discovered.
Already in these early studies, laboratory animals were used. In the following decades, a number of animal models have been developed for both types of diabetes mellitus, the use of which has contributed to a significant degree in understanding the pathogenesis of this disease.
In addition, animal models have also helped in the identification of a number of therapeutic targets and strategies for therapeutic intervention. Despite unquestionable success in studying the pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus, the transfer of therapeutic procedures to humans was unfortunately not so successful.
A number of drug candidates, with promising effects in the animal models, failed completely when tested in clinical trials. In this review, we have summarized and evaluated the importance of animal models in the research of diabetes mellitus over the last hundred years, based on the publications published in the PUBMED database.
In addition, we summarize the current vision and direction for the development of advanced and robust model for diabetes research in the 21st century. (C) 2019 TIGIS Spol. s.r.o.. All rights reserved.