The diabetes (db/db) mutation (leptin-receptor defect) induces a hyperglycemic–hyperinsulinemic endometabolic environment that promotes hypercytolipidemic ovarian involution in C57BL/KsJ mice, resulting in reproductive sterility and eventual organoatrophy. The effectiveness of low-dose (1.0 μg/sc/3.5 day intervals), 17-β-estradiol therapy (E2-HRx), initiated prior to expression of the overt diabetes-obesity syndrome (DOS), on preventing female ovarian follicular cytolipid atrophy was evaluated by analysis of cytochemical, endocrine, and tissue lipo-metabolic indices relative to oil-vehicle treated control (+/?) and (db/db) groups. Chronic low-dose E2-HRx moderated DOS-induced trends in (db/db) groups, maintaining lowered body weights, and systemic euglycemia while stimulating ovarian weight indices. E2-HRx prevented the dramatic hypercytolipidemic condition associated with ovarian follicular involution in (db/db) mice, as evidenced by progressive viable follicular maturation, cytomorphometric analysis of tertiary follicular development, and pre-luteinization indices with diminished follicular atresia rates. The coincident stimulation of tissue lipoprotein lipase and acetyl CoA carboxylase activities in (db/db) ovarian compartments, under persistent hyperinsulinemic influences, indicated that E2-HRx effectively moderated both the structural and hyperlipometabolic consequences of DOS from promoting (db/db)-associated reproductive organoatrophy. Thus, the patho-reproductive alterations induced by the (db/db) mutation can be moderated through low-dose steroidal therapy, the efficacy of which is suspected to occur by steroid-specific nuclear transcription or post-insulin receptor modulation of gluco-metabolic cascades in reproductive target cells.
