Background: Liriopes Radix, which is regarded as both drug and healthy diet, is drunk as tea and used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat diabetes. Based on our previous studies, investigated the hypoglycemic effects and explored the mechanisms of total polysaccharides from Liriope spicata var. prolifera (Liriopes Radix) in a diabetic rat model.
Results: TLSP reduced hyperglycemia in diabetic rats. The oral glucose tolerance test showed that TLSP could improve the glucose tolerance of diabetic rats. Damage to liver and pancreas tissue was inhibited after treatment with TLSP. Moreover, TLSP increased glycogen content, glucokinase (GK) and glycogen synthetase (GS) activities, and suppressed the elevation of glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) and glycogen phosphorylase (GP) activities in liver. Compared with the diabetic control group, GK and GS mRNA expression were significantly elevated, while G6Pase and GP mRNA expression were decreased in TLSP groups. In addition, TLSP could inhibit glycogen synthase kinase-3β expression and increase insulin receptor, insulin receptor substrate-1, phosphoinositide 3-kinase, protein kinase B and glucose transport protein-4 expression in liver.
Conclusion: TLSP showed hypoglycemic function. Improvement of glucose metabolism and insulin-signaling transduction were possible mechanisms.
Keywords: Liriope spicata var. prolifera; glucose metabolism; hyperglycemia; insulin-signaling transduction; polysaccharides.
© 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.