Acta Pharmacologica Sinica 2005 February; 26 (2): 220-222; doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7254.2005.00527.x

Acta Pharmacologica Sinica 2005 February; 26 (2): 220-222; doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7254.2005.00527.x

Original Article

Swietenia mahagony extract shows agonistic activity to PPARγ and gives ameliorative effects on diabetic db/db mice

Dan-dan LI^1,2,5, Jun-hua CHEN^1,4,5, Qing CHEN^1,4, Guo-wei LI^1,4, Jing CHEN^1,4, Jian-min YUE^1,4, Min-li CHEN³, Xiao-ping WANG², Jian-hua SHEN^1,4,6, Xu SHEN^1,4,6, Hua-liang JIANG^1,4,6

¹Drug Discovery and Design Center, State Key Lab of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, ²Chemistry Department, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, ³Animal Experiment Center, Zhejiang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hangzhou 310053; ⁴Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Aim: To search the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) agonists from Swietenia mahagony extract (SmE) and observe the possible ameliorative effects of SmE on diabetic db/db mice.

Methods: The PPARγ agonistic activity of SmE was screened by yeast-two hybrid system. The blood glucose levels of diabetic db/db mice were measured using a blood glucose level monitor and the data were statistically analyzed by NDST8.8W software.

Results: By using the clinical drug rosiglitazone as a positive control, it was found that the PPARγ agonistic activity of SmE at a concentration of 50 µg/L was approximately half that of 35.7 µg/L (0.1 µmol/L) of rosiglitazone. At the dose of 1000 mg/kg, SmE remarkably decreased the blood glucose concentration of db/db mice from (15.26±2.98) to (7.58±2.20) mmol/L, and reduced the blood glucose levels by 55.49% compared with the control group (P<0.01).

Conclusion: SmE shows agonistic activity to PPARγ and can ameliorate the blood glucose levels of diabetic db/db mice. SmE may be thus used as a potential agent for diabetes therapy.

Keywords: Swietenia mahagony; diabetes mellitus; peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ; yeast-two hybrid

⁵These authors contributed equally to this work.
⁶Correspondence to Prof Jian-hua SHEN E-mail jhshen@mail.shcnc.ac.cn; Prof Xu SHEN E-mail xshen@mail.shcnc.ac.cn; Prof Hua-liang JIANG hljiang@mail.shcnc.ac.cn Phn 86-21-5080-6600. Fax 86-21-5080-7088.

Received 2004-09-24 Accepted 2004-11-09

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