Figure 5.

Nuci suppressed lipid accumulation by reducing lipogenesis and promoting lipolysis in HepG2 hepatocyte. Cell viability after treatment of 0~20 μM Nuci were determined by CCK-8 (a). Cells were stained by Oil red O and photographed at 100× magnification (b) and Oil red O dye was extracted and detected (c). Intracellular TG contents (d) were determined by a commercial kit following the manufacturer’s instructions. The mRNA expressions of lipogenesis-related genes SREBP1, FAS, and ACC (e), lipolysis-related genes HSL and ATGL (f), fatty acid oxidation-related genes PPARα and CPT1 (g), and adipokines FGF21 and ZAG (h) were determined by RT-qPCR. Cells were transiently transfected with hFAS625-Luc and hHSL750-Luc plasmids and the luciferase activities of FAS (i) and HSL (j) were measured. The firefly luciferase activities were adjusted by the renilla luciferase. Data were presented with mean ± SE from three independent experiments, each concentration was repeated for 9~12 wells. * p < 0.05 vs. the control group (0 μM).