Nifuroxazide ameliorates lipid and glucose metabolism in palmitate-induced HepG2 cells

Inflammation constitutes an important component of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. STAT3 is a direct target of inflammatory cytokines, but also mediates glycolipid metabolism in the liver. As a potent inhibitor of STAT3, the effect of Nifuroxazide (Nifu) on glycolipid metabolism in liver has not been reported. In this study, we used palmitic acid (PA)-induced HepG2 cells to examine the expression of inflammatory factors and apoptosis-related proteins and the content of triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and glycogen. The expression of hepatic lipogenic proteins (ACCα, SREBP-1c, FAS), gluconeogenesis enzymes (PEPCK, G6Pase, and IRS2), the IL-6/STAT3/SOCS3 inflammatory axis, and the insulin signaling pathway was determined. Our study shows that Nifu significantly improves lipid metabolism disorders in the PA-induced HepG2 cells, whereas, it remarkably reduced intracellular free fatty acid (FFA), TG, and TC content, suppressed lipid synthesis, and increased lipid decomposition. Our results also showed that Nifu significantly improved dysregulated glucose metabolism in the PA-treated HepG2 cells, increased glycogen content, and inhibited gluconeogenesis. Further research indicated that Nifu markedly inhibited activation of the IL-6/STAT3/SOCS3 signaling pathway. Finally, due to anti-inflammatory stress, Nifu enhanced insulin signaling in the PA-induced HepG2 cells. Therefore, Nifu can improve glucose and lipid metabolism in the PA-induced HepG2 cells, which provides new evidence that Nifu has a positive effect on PA-induced cellular hepatic steatosis and improves glucose metabolism in HepG2 cells, providing a new perspective for studying drug treatment of glucose and lipid metabolism disorders.