Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology of Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Description:
The Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rat is a non-obese Wistar substrain which develops Type 2 diabetes mellitus early in life. The model was developed by Goto and Kakizaki at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan in 1975. The GK line was established by repeated inbreeding from Wistar rats selected at the upper limit of normal distribution for glucose tolerance. Repeated selection of rats with tendency to lowest glucose tolerance resulted in clear-cut glucose intolerance after five generations.Until the end of 1980s,