Experimentally-induced Animal Models of Prediabetes and Insulin Resistance: a Review

Animal models are very common in diabetes research when rodents are mostly used in this regard. Although a number of animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are developed in last few decades, the numbers of animal models of prediabetes and insulin resistance are very scanty. Due to the rapidly changing pathogenesis of the disease and preventive study, the popularity of the prediabetic and insulin resistance models are largely increased in the recent years. Some genetically or spontaneously induced models of diabetes are used as models for prediabetes and insulin resistance in the early stage of their lives such as prediabetic SHROB rats, Zucker Diabetic Fatty (ZDF) rats, Goto Kakizaki rats, Otsuka Long Evan Tokushima Fatty Rats (OLETF), prediabetic BB-DP rats and prediabetic Chinese hamster (non-genetic model), however, these models are relatively expensive, not widely available compared experimentally-induced non-genetic models hence not suitable for routine pharmacological screening of anti-diabetic agents. In the present review, we carefully discussed the induction method, induction period, advantages, disadvantages and suitability of various nongenetic or experimentally-induced animal models of prediabetes and insulin resistance. We have also summarized the key factors of different models in a couple of tables to give a quick overview to the diabetes researchers in order to more appropriately select an authentic animal model of prediabetes and/or insulin resistance to achieve their specific research outcomes.