ABSTRACT
Irisin has gained attention because of its potential applications in the treatment of metabolic diseases. Accumulating evidence indicates that irisin attenuates obesity via the browning of white adipose tissue; however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, we evaluated the effects of irisin on adipocyte browning and the underlying mechanisms. The western blotting and immunofluorescence analyses demonstrated that irisin significantly induced the up-regulation of brown fat-specific proteins (PGC1α, PRDM16, and UCP-1) and HO-1 in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Moreover, irisin significantly increased the levels of cytosolic p62 and nuclear Nrf2. These effects of irisin in the adipocytes were attenuated by treatment with SnPP or p62 siRNA. In addition, the browning effect of irisin was observed in BAT-WT-1 cells. These findings suggest that irisin induced browning effect via the p62/Nrf2/HO-1 signalling pathway and that it may be a potential candidate for preventing or treating obesity.
Subject(s)
Adipocytes, Brown/drug effects , Adipocytes/drug effects , Fibronectins/pharmacology , Heme Oxygenase-1/physiology , Membrane Proteins/physiology , Sequestosome-1 Protein/physiology , 3T3-L1 Cells , Adipocytes/physiology , Adipocytes, Brown/physiology , Animals , Cell Differentiation/drug effects , Cell Transdifferentiation/drug effects , Cell Transdifferentiation/genetics , Cells, Cultured , Fibronectins/physiology , Lipid Metabolism/drug effects , Lipid Metabolism/genetics , Mice , NF-E2-Related Factor 2/physiology , Signal Transduction/drug effects , Signal Transduction/physiologyABSTRACT
Holistic medicine is an interdisciplinary field that integrates all types of biological information (proteins, small molecules, tissues, organs, external environmental signals, etc.) to provide predictable and operational models for healthcare and disease treatment. Despite the global and integrative character of this discipline, scientific evidences to clarify the mechanism of holistic medicine is still lacking. Systems pharmacology, as a newly developed discipline based on the interdisciplinary and integration of classical pharmacology, computer technology, bioinformatics, and network pharmacology, has systematically studied the interaction between drugs and the human body, as well as its law and nature at the molecular, cellular, organ and network levels. Since its birth in 2011, this discipline has been widely used in the research of the promotion of holistic medicine, compound analysis, the development of new drugs, and interpretation of basic theories of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In this paper, in order to provide new methods and ideas for the modernization of holistic medicine, the authors introduce the research ideas of systems pharmacology of TCM in detail, and the mechanism of holistic medicine in the treatment of complex diseases is explained by sorting out the researches of systems pharmacology on multi-component, multi-target, multi-pathway, multi-function, compatibility of TCM, etc.
