Bofutsushosan ameliorates obesity in mice through modulating PGC-1α expression in brown adipose tissues and inhibiting inflammation in white adipose tissues

Abstract The inducible co-activator PGC-1α plays a crucial role in adaptive thermogenesis and increases energy expenditure in brown adipose tissue (BAT). Meanwhile, chronic inflammation caused by infiltrated-macrophage in the white adipose tissue (WAT) is a target for the treatment of obesity. Bofutsushosan (BF), a traditional Chinese medicine composed of 17 crude drugs, has been widely used to treat obesity in China, Japan, and other Asia countries. However, the mechanism underlying anti-obesity remains to be elucidated. In the present study, we demonstrated that BF oral administration reduced the body weight of obese mice induced by high-fat diet (HFD) and alleviated the level of biochemical markers ( P α and UCP1 in BAT. Moreover, BF also reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines in WAT, such as tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF- α ) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). These findings suggested that the mechanism of BF against obesity was at least partially through increasing gene expression of PGC-1 α and UCP1 for energy consumption in BAT and inhibiting inflammation in WAT.