The aim of this study was to investigate whether a water extract of L. cladonioides (LC) has an anti-obesity effect in 3T3-L1 cells and obese mice. Treatment of differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes with LC caused a significant increase in glycerol release and reduced the protein expression of the adipogenic transcription factors, PPARγ and C/EBPα. In an animal model, obese mice were artificially induced by a high fat diet for 10 weeks. Experimental groups were treated with LC (100 mg/kg/day) by gavage for the next 10 weeks. At the end of experiment, the body weight of the LC group mice was reduced by 14.2% compared to the high fat diet (HFD) group. The treatment also decreased liver (31.0%), epididymal (18.0%) and retroperitoneal (19.3%) adipose tissue, and kidney (6.7%) weights, respectively, compared with those of the HFD group. LC prevented diet-induced increases in the serum level of TC (22.6%), TG (11.6%), and glucose (35.0%), respectively, compared with the HFD group. However, the HDL-C level was higher in the LC group (26.1%) than the HFD group. The results of this study thus suggest that LC suppressed lipid accumulation and expression of adipogenic transcription factors, and increased the amount of glycerol release. LC also indicated an anti-obese and anti-hyperlipidemic effect.
Obesity is a fast-growing problem that is reaching pandemic proportions. Chlorella has many biological merits for promoting health, including detoxification, boosting the immune system, and even reversing cancer. In this study, we found that methanol extract of Chlorella reduces lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. It has been postulated that these antiobesity effects could be a result of reducing adipogenesis. First, the MTT assay indicated that Chlorella significantly inhibited cell growth of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. The accumulation of triacylglycerol in 3T3-L1 adipocytes decreased in cells treated with Chlorella versus those in untreated cells by Oil Red O staining. In parallel, Chlorella showed a significant dose-dependent increase in lactate dehydrogenase activity in culture medium of differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Second, we investigated the effects of Chlorella on the induction of apoptosis by fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis. Chlorella showed that apoptotic cells increased in a time- and dose-dependent manner in cell apoptosis analysis by propidium iodide (PI) staining. Treatment with Chlorella decreased the number of normal cells and increased the number of apoptotic cells in a dose-dependent manner in annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/PI double staining. Therefore, Chlorella is expected to efficiently reduce adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and to induce apoptosis in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes.
This study sought to investigate the adhesion strength reduction of reclaimed butyl rubber self-adhesive waterproofing sheets after exposure to a chemical erosion environment. Ranges from 0 to 45% mixture ratio (with changing intervals of 5% ratio) of reclaimed butyl rubber replaced the new rubber content of commercial butyl rubber self-adhesive waterproofing sheets for testing, based on the optimal results for the reclaimed butyl rubber content in order to ensure performance that meets the standard criteria. The research results confirmed that performance degradation was relatively greater when exposed to an acidic environment that was responsible for chemical deterioration. It was also confirmed that, given the deterioration environment described above, the reclaimed butyl rubber content should be limited to 44% so as to ensure an adhesion performance similar to that of the untreated test sample (reclaimed butyl rubber content of 67%). Based on the above results, it was suggested that the optimal mixing range of reclaimed butyl rubber should be up to 44% of the total rubber content, considering performance degradation after field application in the production of self-adhesive waterproofing sheets.
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