BYGlc showed hypoglycemic activity accompanied by promotion of metabolism and inhibition of inflammation in T2D/DIO mice model. The hypoglycemic mechanisms were first declared to be through suppressing sodium-glucose transporter-1 expression and possibly associated with the altered gut microbiota.

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Baker's yeast glucan (BYG) has been reported to be an anti-diabetic agent. In the work described herein, further study on the effect of orally administered BYG on glucose and lipid homeostasis in the livers of ob/ob mice was performed. It was found that BYG decreased the blood glucose and the hepatic glucose and lipid disorders. Western blotting analysis revealed that BYG up-regulated p-AKT and p-AMPK, and down-regulated p-Acc in the liver. Furthermore, RNA-Seq analysis indicated that BYG down-regulated genes responsible for gluconeogenesis (G6pase and Got1), fatty acid biosynthesis (Acly, Acc, Fas, etc.), glycerolipid synthesis (Gpam and Lipin1/2), and cholesterol synthesis (Hmgcr, Fdps, etc.). Additionally, BYG decreased glucose transporters SGLT1 and GLUT2, fat emulsification, and adipogenic genes/proteins in the intestine to decrease glucose and lipid absorption. All these findings demonstrated that BYG is beneficial for regulating glucose and lipid homeostasis in diabetic mice, and thus has potential applications in anti-diabetic foods or drugs.

β-Glucans are well known for its various bioactivities, but the underlying mechanism has not been fully understood. This study focuses on the anti-tumor effect and the potential mechanism of a branched β-(1, 3)-glucan (LNT) extracted from Lentinus edodes. The in vivo data indicated that LNT showed a profound inhibition ratio of ~75% against S-180 tumor growth, even significantly higher than the positive control of Cytoxan (~54%). Interestingly, LNT sharply promoted immune cells accumulation into tumors accompanied by cell apoptosis and inhibition of cell proliferation during tumor development. Furthermore, LNT not only up-regulated expressions of the tumor suppressor p53, cell cycle arrestin p21 and pro-apoptotic proteins of Bax and caspase 3/9, but also down-regulated PARP1 and anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 expressions in tumor tissues. It was first found that LNT initiated p53-dependent signaling pathway to suppress cell proliferation in vitro, and the caspase-dependent pathway to induce cell apoptosis in vivo. The underlying anti-tumor mechanism was proposed that LNT activated immune responses to induce cell apoptosis through caspase 3-dependent signaling pathway and to inhibit cell proliferation possibly via p53-dependent signaling pathway in vivo. Besides, LNT inhibited angiogenesis by suppressing VEGF expression, leading to slow progression of tumors.

has been regarded as an alternative strategy to treat IBD by downregulating TNF-α levels produced by the activated macrophages. [17][18][19][20] However, the success of RNAi has to mainly rely on the gene carriers to protect the target genes. Many researchers have been working on the discovery of drug and gene carriers with high efficiency and biocompatibility. [21][22][23][24][25] Electrostatic condensation of macromolecular genes into nanoparticles by cationic carriers has been acknowledged to be a common strategy for the nonviral delivery. [26][27][28] As reported, polycations acting as gene carriers possess such limitation as lack of superior biocompatibility, insufficient release of delivered genes, easy absorption, and quick elimination in the bloodstream. [29][30][31][32] Therefore, developing new delivery strategies is necessitated to substantially overcome these shortcomings for promoting application of RNAi technology.Polysaccharides such as schizophyllan, curdlan, yeast glucan, lentinan, and auricularian have been introduced as soft matrices to accommodate inorganic nanoparticles, fluorescent dyes, drugs, and oligonucleotides for versatile therapeutic functions due to their unique structural characteristics. [33] Of these, lentinan (LNT for short) has been demonstrated to exist as a triple helix (denoted t-LNT) in water and as a single flexible chain (denoted s-LNT) under such conditions as in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), [34,35] in aqueous sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution with the NaOH concentration higher than 0.08 m, [36] and in water at the temperature of higher than 135 °C. [37] When the DMSO content decreases gradually through adding water or dialysis against water, the s-LNT chains reassemble into the triple helix (denoted r-LNT) owing to the hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding interactions. [38] Moreover, when single polydeoxyadenylic acid (poly(dA)) chains are added during the reassembling process of s-LNT, two s-LNT chains are able to selectively combine a poly(dA) chain via hydrogen bonding to form a novel triple helical hybrid (denoted s-LNT/ poly(dA)) with high thermal stability under the physiological condition, [39] effectively protecting poly(dA) from degradation. Based on these findings, we have established a promising gene delivering vehicle based on the s-LNT/poly(dA) nanocomposite, in which an immune gene of CpG DNA was linked with a poly(dA) tail through a disulfide bond to stimulate IL-12p40 Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is usually regarded as a potential target for inflammatory bowel disease therapy. Herein, a promising strategy for effective delivery of phosphorothioated antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotide of TNF-α (PS-ATNF-α), targeting the intestinal inflammation based on the interaction of the single chain of triple helical β-glucan (s-LNT) with polydeoxyadenylic acid [poly(dA)], and the colon-specific degradation of chitosanalginate (CA) hydrogel, is reported. The target gene of PS-ATNF-α, with a poly(dA) tail through a disulfide bond (-SS-), interacts with s-LNT to form a r...