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Updated: Oct 27, 2025
Optimized Analysis of In Vivo and In Vitro Hepatic Steatosis
Published on: March 11, 2017
Salidroside Activates the AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Pathway to Suppress Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis in Mice
Manli Hu1,2, Dingran Zhang1, Hongyang Xu1
1Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
Background And Aims:
NASH is becoming a leading cause of liver cirrhosis and HCC. Salidroside (p-hydroxyphenethyl-β-D-glucoside; SAL) has various biological and pharmacological activities, including anti-inflammatory, -oxidant, and -cancer activities. However, the therapeutic effect and underlying molecular mechanism of SAL in NASH remain to be further clarified.
Methods And Results:
In this study, we found that SAL alleviated lipid accumulation and inflammatory response in primary hepatocytes after palmitic acid/oleic acid (PO) stimulation. In addition, SAL effectively prevented high-fat/high-cholesterol (HFHC)-diet-induced NASH progression by regulating glucose metabolism dysregulation, insulin resistance, lipid accumulation, inflammation, and fibrosis. Mechanistically, integrated RNA-sequencing and bioinformatic analysis showed that SAL promoted AMPK-signaling pathway activation in vitro and in vivo, and this finding was further verified by determining the phosphorylation levels of AMPK. Furthermore, the protective effects of SAL on lipid accumulation and inflammation in hepatocytes and livers induced by PO or HFHC stimulation were blocked by AMPK interruption.
Conclusions:
Our studies demonstrate that SAL protects against metabolic-stress-induced NASH progression through activation of AMPK signaling, indicating that SAL could be a potential drug component for NASH therapy.
