Abstract
Asperlin is a marine-derived, natural product with antifungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerotic activities. In the present study, we showed that asperlin effectively prevented the development of obesity in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. Oral administration of asperlin for 12 weeks significantly suppressed HFD-induced body weight gain and fat deposition without inhibiting food intake. Hyperlipidemia and liver steatosis were also substantially ameliorated. A respiratory metabolism monitor showed that asperlin efficiently increased energy expenditure and enhanced thermogenic gene expression in adipose tissue. Accordingly, asperlin-treated mice showed higher body temperature and were more tolerant of cold stress. Meanwhile, asperlin also increased the diversity and shifted the structure of gut microbiota. Oral administration of asperlin markedly increased the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes, leading to a higher Bacteroidetes-to-Fimicutes ratio. The HFD-induced abnormalities at both phylum and genus levels were all remarkably recovered by asperlin. These results demonstrated that asperlin is effective in preventing HFD-induced obesity and modulating gut microbiota. Its anti-obesity properties may be attributed to its effect on promoting energy expenditure.
Highlights
Obesity is a global epidemic, with more than 1.9 billion people being obese or overweight [1].The abnormal lipid accumulation in liver and visceral fat tissues results in many health complications, such as type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular diseases [2], which impose a heavy burden on national healthcare systems
These results suggest that oral administration of asperlin remarkably influenced the gut gut microbial microbial community community and andshifted shiftedthe thegut gutmicrobiota microbiotastructure structureto toaanormal normalstate
The anti-obesity and anti-diabetes effects of SCFAs have been well-documented and many anti-obesity agents such as berberine [34] have been reported to exert their pharmacological effect through enhancing SCFA-producing bacteria. These results suggest that oral administration of asperlin contributes to shifting the gut microbiota structure to a normal state, which may play a potential role in its anti-obesity effect
Summary
Obesity is a global epidemic, with more than 1.9 billion people being obese or overweight [1].The abnormal lipid accumulation in liver and visceral fat tissues results in many health complications, such as type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular diseases [2], which impose a heavy burden on national healthcare systems. The fundamental cause of obesity is a chronic imbalance of energy metabolism [3,4,5]. Restricting food intake and doing exercise are two common approaches to preventing obesity. Food restriction is essential in preventing obesity, enhancing energy expenditure represents an alternative [6]. The human gut harbors more than 100 trillion microbes, which are collectively named gut microbiota. A huge body of evidence has proved that gut microbiota plays essential roles in the maintenance of human health [7,8]. Abnormal changes in the gut microbial community, which is called dysbiosis, are closely associated with many metabolic disorders including obesity, hyperlipidemia, Mar. Drugs 2019, 17, 38; doi:10.3390/md17010038 www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs
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