Transcriptomic and metabonomic profiling reveal the anti-obesity effects of Chikusetsusaponin V, a compound extracted from Panax japonicus.

Abstract

To explore the in vivo anti-obesity effect of chikusetsusaponin V and explore the underlying mechanism by transcriptomic and metabonomic methods. The physiological parameters of high-fat-diet induced obese mice administered with or without 25 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg of chikusetsusaponin V by gavage for 16 weeks were recorded. In addition, the RNA-sequencing and UHPLC-Q-TOF techniques were applied to obtain the transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling, respectively. Chikusetsusaponin V could significantly alleviate the high-fat-diet induced increase in the weight of the whole body and obesity-related organs or tissues, and ameliorate the lipid content in the blood, the lipid accumulation in the livers, as well as the hypertrophy of the fat tissues. Importantly, transcriptomic results revealed that more than 30 genes involved in the pathway which closely associates with obesity, were significantly altered. Moreover, metabolomic data indicated the key differential metabolites enriched in the pathways such as the activated protein kinase signaling pathway which is a vital mediator of obesity and other processes. The integrative analysis highlighted that chikusetsusaponin V significantly influenced the activated protein kinase signaling pathway at both transcriptomic and metabolomic levels, thereby exerting anti-obesity effects.