Project description:Lipid metabolic homeostasis is fundamental for maintaining normal physiological functions. Abnormal lipid accumulation contributes to the development of various metabolic disorders, including obesity, hepatic steatosis, and type 2 diabetes. Given the high global prevalence of these diseases and the lack of safe and effective therapeutic agents, there is an urgent need to identify novel lipid‑regulating compounds. Farrerol, a major dihydroflavonoid isolated from the medicinal herb Rhododendron dauricum L., has been reported to exert anti‑inflammatory, antioxidant, and pro‑angiogenic activities. However, its specific role in regulating lipid metabolism, the underlying molecular mechanisms, and its efficacy and safety in vitro and in vivo remain unclear. This study aimed to systematically investigate the lipid‑regulatory effects of farrerol, elucidate its potential molecular mechanisms, and validate its anti‑lipidemic activity and safety in cellular and animal models, thereby providing a novel candidate drug and theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of lipid metabolism disorders.
Project description:Rhododendron is well known woody plant, as having high ornamental and economic values. Heat stress is one of the important environmental stresses that effects Rhododendron growth. Recently, melatonin was reported to alleviate abiotic stress in plants. However, the role of melatonin in Rhododendron is still unknown. In the present study, the effect of melatonin on Rhododendron under heat stress and the potential mechanism was investigated. Through morphological characterization and chlorophyll a fluorescence analysis, 200µM was selected for the best melatonin concentration to mitigate heat stress in Rhododendron. To reveal the mechanism of melatonin priming alleviating the heat stress, the photosynthesis indexes, Rubisco activity and ATP content were detected in 25 ℃, 35 ℃ and 40 ℃. The results showed that melatonin improves electron transport rate (ETR), PSII and PSI activity, Rubisco activity and ATP content under high temperature stress. Furthermore, transcriptome analysis showed that a significant enrichment of differentially expressed genes in the photosynthesis pathway, and most of genes in photosynthesis pathway displayed a more significantly slight down-regulation under high temperature stress in melatonin-treatment plants, compared with melatonin-free plants. We identified PGR5……Together, these results demonstrate that melatonin could promote the photosynthetic electron transport, improve the enzymes activities in Calvin cycle and the production of ATP, and thereby increase photosynthetic efficiency and CO2 assimilation capacity under heat stress, through regulating the expression of some key genes, such as PGR5…Therefore, melatonin application displayed great potential to cope with the heat stress in Rhododendron.