RESUMEN
italic>Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo (D. officinale) has been used as a valuable traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2 000 years in China. Modern research has confirmed a wide range of pharmacological activities, such as regulating blood sugar, improving gastrointestinal inflammation, and regulating immunity. Polysaccharides are the main active ingredients of D. officinale. With the intensive studies of the pharmacological activities of D. officinale, evidence for the pharmacological effects and potential mechanisms of D. officinale polysaccharides has increased dramatically. In this review, we summarized the latest progress in the pharmacological and mechanical studies of D. officinale polysaccharides, and based on the pharmacological efficacy and oral absorption and utilization characteristics of D. officinale polysaccharides, it is proposed that regulating the gut microbiota may be one of the key mechanisms for D. officinale to exert its beneficial effects. Research on the mechanism of D. officinale polysaccharides puts forward new research directions and prospects.
RESUMEN
The fruit of Pandanus tectorius (PTF) has a long history of use as a folk medicine to treat hyperlipidemia in Hainan province, South China. Our previous studies have shown that the n-butanol extract of PTF is rich in caffeoylquinic acids and has an adequate therapeutic effect on dyslipidemic animals induced by high-fat diet. In this work, seven caffeoylquinic acids isolated from PTF were screened for the lipid-lowering activity in HepG2 hepatoma cells. Oil-Red O staining, microscopy and intracellular triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) quantification showed that 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid (3-CQA), 3, 5-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid (3,5-CQA), and 3,4,5-tri-O-caffeoylquinic acid (3,4,5-CQA) significantly inhibited lipid accumulation induced by oleic acid and decreased intracellular levels of TC and TG in a dose-dependent manner. These three caffeoylquinic acids showed no significant cytotoxicity at concentrations of 1 -50 μmol x L(-1) as determined by MTT assay. Realtime quantitative PCR revealed that 3-CQA and 3, 5-CQA significantly increased the expression of lipid oxidation-related genes PPARα, CPT-1 and ACOX1 while 3-CQA, 3, 5-CQA and 3,4,5-CQA decreased the expression of lipogenic genes SREBP-1c, SREBP-2, HMGR, ACC, FAS. Overall, 3-CQA, 3, 5-CQA and 3, 4, 5-CQA may be the principal hypolipidemic components in PTF which can decrease intracellular lipid accumulation through up-regulating the expression of lipid oxidative genes and down-regulating the expression of lipogenic genes.