Corni Fructus extracts ameliorate Streptozotocin-Induced diabetes in mice via regulating AMPK/ACC/CPT-1 signaling pathway

As a common endocrine disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has a rising incidence year by year, which is producing various complications seriously threatening human health. Therefore, great attention has been paid to T2DM treatment, in which medicinal and food homologous plants play key roles because of their natural, healthy and widely used characteristics. Corni Fructus (CF) has been used centuries for the hypoglycemics and hypolipidemics. However, the detailed mechanism of CF on T2DM is still far from elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the effect of different extracts of CF on T2DM hepatic lipid metabolism and the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that CF can inhibit the body weight loss, decrease blood glucose and regulate serum lipid contents in T2DM mice. It also restored the islet function of the mice and reversed their abnormal lipid metabolism. Additionally, the mechanism of CF extracts to improve T2DM was explored, CF enhanced the activation of AMP-activating protein kinase and upregulated lipid oxidation related proteins, such as ACC and CPT-1, these data suggested that CF significantly improved T2DM mice at least partially through AMPK/ACC/CPT-1 signaling pathway. Taken together, our data demonstrated that CF may be a novel potential agent for T2DM treatment.