scholarly journals Alcohol Abstinence Rescues Hepatic Steatosis and Liver Injury via Improving Metabolic Reprogramming in Chronic Alcohol-Fed Mice

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aiwen Pi ◽  
Kai Jiang ◽  
Qinchao Ding ◽  
Shanglei Lai ◽  
Wenwen Yang ◽  
...  

Background: Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) caused by chronic ethanol overconsumption is a common type of liver disease with a severe mortality burden throughout the world. The pathogenesis of ALD is complex, and no effective clinical treatment for the disease has advanced so far. Prolonged alcohol abstinence is the most effective therapy to attenuate the clinical course of ALD and even reverse liver damage. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in alcohol abstinence-improved recovery from alcoholic fatty liver remain unclear. This study aims to systematically evaluate the beneficial effect of alcohol abstinence on pathological changes in ALD.Methods: Using the Lieber-DeCarli mouse model of ALD, we analysed whether 1-week alcohol withdrawal reversed alcohol-induced detrimental alterations, including oxidative stress, liver injury, lipids metabolism, and hepatic inflammation, by detecting biomarkers and potential targets.Results: Alcohol withdrawal ameliorated alcohol-induced hepatic steatosis by improving liver lipid metabolism reprogramming via upregulating phosphorylated 5′-AMP -activated protein kinase (p-AMPK), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α (PPAR-α), and carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 (CPT-1), and downregulating fatty acid synthase (FAS) and diacylglycerol acyltransferase-2 (DGAT-2). The activities of antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-px), were significantly enhanced by alcohol withdrawal. Importantly, the abstinence recovered alcohol-fed induced liver injury, as evidenced by the improvements in haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, plasma alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, and liver weight/body weight ratio. Alcohol-stimulated toll-like receptor 4/mitogen-activated protein kinases (TLR4/MAPKs) were significantly reversed by alcohol withdrawal, which might mechanistically contribute to the amelioration of liver injury. Accordingly, the hepatic inflammatory factor represented by tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) was improved by alcohol abstinence.Conclusion: In summary, we reported that alcohol withdrawal effectively restored hepatic lipid metabolism and reversed liver injury and inflammation by improving metabolism reprogramming. These findings enhanced our understanding of the biological mechanisms involved in the beneficial role of alcohol abstinence as an effective treatment for ALD.

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 2325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Li ◽  
Wonbeak Yoo ◽  
Hye-Mi Park ◽  
Soo-Youn Lim ◽  
Dong-Ha Shin ◽  
...  

Arazyme, a metalloprotease from the spider Nephila clavata, exerts hepatoprotective activity in CCL4-induced acute hepatic injury. This study investigated the hepatoprotective effects in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease-like C57BL/6J mice. The mice were randomly divided into four groups (n = 10/group): the normal diet group, the HFD group, the arazyme group (HFD with 0.025% arazyme), and the milk thistle (MT) group (HFD with 0.1% MT). Dietary supplementation of arazyme for 13 weeks significantly lowered plasma triglyceride (TG) and non-esterified fatty acid levels. Suppression of HFD-induced hepatic steatosis in the arazyme group was caused by the reduced hepatic TG and total cholesterol (TC) contents. Arazyme supplementation decreased hepatic lipogenesis-related gene expression, sterol regulatory element-binding transcription protein 1 (Srebf1), fatty acid synthase (Fas), acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 (Acc1), stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 (Scd1), Scd2, glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (Gpam), diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1 (Dgat1), and Dgat2. Arazyme directly reduced palmitic acid (PA)-induced TG accumulation in HepG2 cells. Arazyme suppressed macrophage infiltration and tumor necrosis factor α (Tnfa), interleukin-1β (Il1b), and chemokine-ligand-2 (Ccl2) expression in the liver, and inhibited secretion of TNFα and expression of inflammatory mediators, Tnfa, Il1b, Ccl2, Ccl3, Ccl4, and Ccl5, in PA-induced RAW264.7 cells. Arazyme effectively protected hepatic steatosis and steatohepatitis by inhibiting SREBP-1-mediated lipid accumulation and macrophage-mediated inflammation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yo Han Lee ◽  
Hyun-Jun Jang ◽  
Sounkou Kim ◽  
Sun Sil Choi ◽  
Keon Woo Khim ◽  
...  

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with hepatic metabolic reprogramming that leads to excessive lipid accumulation and imbalances in lipid metabolism in the liver. Although nuclear receptors (NRs) play a crucial role in hepatic metabolic reprogramming, the underlying mechanisms of NR regulation in NAFLD remain largely unclear. Methods: Using network analysis and RNA-seq to determine the correlation between NRs and microRNA in NAFLD patients, we revealed that miR-20b specifically targets PPARα. miR-20b mimic and anti-miR-20b were administered to hepatocytes as well as high fat diet (HFD)- or methionine-deficient diet (MCD)-fed mice to verify the specific function of miR-20b in NAFLD. We tested the inhibition of the therapeutic effect of a PPARα agonist, fenofibrate, by miR-20b. Results: We revealed that miR-20b specifically targets PPARα through miRNA regulatory network analysis of nuclear receptor genes in NAFLD. The expression of miR-20b was upregulated in free fatty acid (FA)-treated hepatocytes and the livers of both obesity-induced mice and NAFLD patients. Overexpression of miR-20b significantly increased hepatic lipid accumulation and triglyceride levels. Furthermore, miR-20b significantly reduced FA oxidation and mitochondrial biogenesis by targeting PPARα. In miR-20b-introduced mice, the effect of fenofibrate to ameliorate hepatic steatosis was significantly suppressed. Finally, inhibition of miR-20b significantly increased FA oxidation and uptake, resulting in improved insulin sensitivity and a decrease in NAFLD progression. Conclusions: Taken together, our results demonstrate that the novel miR-20b targets PPARα, plays a significant role in hepatic lipid metabolism, and present an opportunity for the development of novel therapeutics for NAFLD. Funding: This research was funded by Korea Mouse Phenotyping Project (2016M3A9D5A01952411), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (2020R1F1A1061267, 2018R1A5A1024340), the Future-leading Project Research Fund (1.210034.01) of UNIST and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (2020R1I1A1A01074940).


eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madlen Matz-Soja ◽  
Christiane Rennert ◽  
Kristin Schönefeld ◽  
Susanne Aleithe ◽  
Jan Boettger ◽  
...  

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease in industrialized countries and is increasing in prevalence. The pathomechanisms, however, are poorly understood. This study assessed the unexpected role of the Hedgehog pathway in adult liver lipid metabolism. Using transgenic mice with conditional hepatocyte-specific deletion of Smoothened in adult mice, we showed that hepatocellular inhibition of Hedgehog signaling leads to steatosis by altering the abundance of the transcription factors GLI1 and GLI3. This steatotic 'Gli-code' caused the modulation of a complex network of lipogenic transcription factors and enzymes, including SREBP1 and PNPLA3, as demonstrated by microarray analysis and siRNA experiments and could be confirmed in other steatotic mouse models as well as in steatotic human livers. Conversely, activation of the Hedgehog pathway reversed the "Gli-code" and mitigated hepatic steatosis. Collectively, our results reveal that dysfunctions in the Hedgehog pathway play an important role in hepatic steatosis and beyond.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baoai Wu ◽  
Yiming Tian ◽  
Chong Xu ◽  
Yu Zeng ◽  
Feng Yan ◽  
...  

Abstract The role of aerobic exercise in preventing and improving non-alcoholic fatty liver has been widely established. SRA is a long non-coding RNA, which has received increasing attention due to its important role in lipid metabolism. However, it is unclear whether aerobic exercise can prevent and treat hepatic lipid accumulation via SRA. The mice were randomly divided into three groups as follows, normal control group (NC), high-fat diet group (HFD), and high-fat diet plus aerobic exercise (8weeks, 6 days/ week, 18 m/ min for 50 min, 6% slope) group (HAE). After 8 weeks, the mice in the HAE group showed significant improvement in hepatic steatosis. Body weight as well as blood TC, LDL-C, and liver TG levels were significantly lower in the HAE group than in the HFD group. Compared with the HFD group, the expression of SRA was markedly suppressed and the expression of ATGL was significantly increased in the HAE group. Additionally, the JNK/P38 signaling was inhibited, the pro-inflammatory factors were down-regulated, and the anti-inflammatory factor was increased. The results of this study provided new support for aerobic exercise to improve hepatic lipid metabolism via lncRNA.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Li ◽  
Xinle Li ◽  
Daquan Liu ◽  
Shiqi Zhang ◽  
Nian Tan ◽  
...  

AbstractNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder and frequently exacerbates in postmenopausal women. In NAFLD, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) plays an important role in lipid metabolism, in which salubrinal is a selective inhibitor of eIF2α de-phosphorylation in response to ER stress. To determine the potential mechanism of obesity-induced NAFLD, we employed salubrinal and evaluated the effect of ER stress and autophagy on lipid metabolism. Ninety-five female C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into five groups: standard chow diet, high-fat (HF) diet, HF with salubrinal, HF with ovariectomy, and HF with ovariectomy and salubrinal. All mice except for SC were given HF diet. After the 8-week obesity induction, salubrinal was subcutaneously injected for the next 8 weeks. The expression of ER stress and autophagy markers was evaluated in vivo and in vitro. Compared to the normal mice, the serum lipid level and adipose tissue were increased in obese mice, while salubrinal attenuated obesity by blocking lipid disorder. Also, the histological severity of hepatic steatosis and fibrosis in the liver and lipidosis was suppressed in response to salubrinal. Furthermore, salubrinal inhibited ER stress by increasing the expression of p-eIF2α and ATF4 with a decrease in the level of CHOP. It promoted autophagy by increasing LC3II/I and inhibiting p62. Correlation analysis indicated that lipogenesis in the development of NAFLD was associated with ER stress. Collectively, we demonstrated that eIF2α played a key role in obesity-induced NAFLD, and salubrinal alleviated hepatic steatosis and lipid metabolism by altering ER stress and autophagy through eIF2α signaling.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Yana Geng ◽  
Klaas Nico Faber ◽  
Vincent E. de Meijer ◽  
Hans Blokzijl ◽  
Han Moshage

Abstract Background Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), characterized as excess lipid accumulation in the liver which is not due to alcohol use, has emerged as one of the major health problems around the world. The dysregulated lipid metabolism creates a lipotoxic environment which promotes the development of NAFLD, especially the progression from simple steatosis (NAFL) to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Purposeand Aim This review focuses on the mechanisms of lipid accumulation in the liver, with an emphasis on the metabolic fate of free fatty acids (FFAs) in NAFLD and presents an update on the relevant cellular processes/mechanisms that are involved in lipotoxicity. The changes in the levels of various lipid species that result from the imbalance between lipolysis/lipid uptake/lipogenesis and lipid oxidation/secretion can cause organellar dysfunction, e.g. ER stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, lysosomal dysfunction, JNK activation, secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and aggravate (or be exacerbated by) hypoxia which ultimately lead to cell death. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of how abnormal lipid metabolism leads to lipotoxicity and the cellular mechanisms of lipotoxicity in the context of NAFLD.


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