Objectives
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of fucosterol on adipogenesis of 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes and its underlying mechanisms.
Methods
Fucosterol, isolated from brown algae, Ecklonia stolonifera. We investigated the levels of lipid accumulation using Oil Red O staining. We conducted Western blot analysis to investigate regulatory effects of fucosterol on expression of phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K), Akt, extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK), forkhead box protein O 1 (FoxO1) in 3T3‐L1 adipocytes.
Key findings
Fucosterol significantly reduced intracellular lipid accumulation of 3T3‐L1 adipocytes at concentrations of 25 and 50 μm. Fucosterol downregulated insulin‐triggered PI3K/Akt, and ERK pathways. It subsequently decreased expression of adipogenic transcription factors, including PPARγ, C/EBPα and SREBP‐1. In addition, fucosterol enhanced SirT1 expression while decreased phospho‐FoxO1 expression which resulted in the activation of FoxO1.
Conclusions
We revealed that fucosterol inhibited adipogenesis of 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes through modulation of FoxO signalling pathway. Therefore, our results suggest that fucosterol may be used for novel agents for the treatment of obesity.