Figure 4

Improvement of glucose and energy homeostasis by Zj7 treatment. (A) Glucose tolerance test (GTT) after two-week treatments. (B) Insulin tolerance test (ITT) after 17-day treatments. (Vehicle n = 8; Zj7 n = 8). (C) RER. (D) EE (kcal/h/kg lean mass). (E) Locomotor activity (count). Bar graphs represent the average of 48 hourly observations for each of the vehicle-injected and Zj7-injected groups. (Vehicle n = 10, Zj7 n = 9). (F) IHC showed that brown adipose tissue from Zj7 injected DIO mice significantly increased the expression of UCP1 (thermogenic gene) and TH (sympathetic innervation) levels compared to vehicle injected DIO mice. (Vehicle n = 3, Zj7 n = 3). Scale bars: 100 μm. (G) The thermogenesis markers, including Ucp1, Ucp2, β3-AR, Dio2 and Prdm16 were significantly increased in brown adipose tissue of Zj7 injected DIO mice compared to vehicle injected DIO mice by quantitative RT-PCR (Vehicle n = 3, Zj7 n = 3). The values are presented as the means ± SEM. p values were calculated using Bonferroni’s post hoc test following a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (A and B) using Prism 9 (GraphPad) software and Student’s t-test (C–G). The number of asterisks indicates the level of significance: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 and ****p < 0.0001.