title: Young persimmon fruits prevent the rise in plasma lipids in a diet-induced murine obesity model.
abstract: The effect of young and mature persimmon fruits on lipid metabolism was investigated in a diet-induced murine obesity model. A commercially purchased high fat diet (Quick Fat, CLEA Japan) was used as the basal diet. Dried and powdered young and mature fruits of two breeds of persimmon, Fuyu-kaki and Hachiya-kaki, were added to the basal diet at a concentration of 10%, respectively. Male C57BL/6 mice (n=4) were divided into five groups and fed the basal diet or one of the persimmon-supplemented basal diets ad libitum for 14 weeks. Diets supplemented with both types of young fruit significantly reduced the rise in plasma lipids, including total cholesterol (p<0.005), triglyceride (p<0.05), and LDL cholesterol (p<0.05), and the effect was almost equal between the two breeds. Real-time RT-PCR revealed that both of these young fruit-supplemented diets equally up-regulated expression of the cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) gene in the liver by about three-fold (p<0.05). CYP7A1 plays an important role in maintaining cholesterol homeostasis by regulating bile acid synthesis, suggesting that increased conversion of cholesterol to bile acids may have caused the cholesterol-lowering effect of the young fruits. The results indicate that young persimmon fruits are beneficial in the development of preventive and therapeutic agents against dyslipidemia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Microbiology, Gifu Prefectural Research Institute for Bioengineering, Japan. matsumoto@bio.rd.pref.gifu.jp
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Masa-aki
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ohya
authors.forename: Shin-ichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002790:Cholesterol 7-alpha-Hydroxylase / Q000235:genetics; D004032:Diet; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005638:Fruit; D008055:Lipids / Q000097:blood*; D008099:Liver / Q000201:enzymology; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009765:Obesity / Q000097:blood*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015854:Up-Regulation
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids; D002790:Cholesterol 7-alpha-Hydroxylase; C502772:Cyp7a1 protein, mouse