Anti-diabetic effects of sea cucumber (Holothuria nobilis) hydrolysates in streptozotocin and high-fat-diet induced diabetic rats via activating the PI3K/Akt pathway

• Main Authors: Tingting Wang, Lin Zheng, Tiantian Zhao, Qi Zhang, Zhitong Liu, Xiaoling Liu, Mouming Zhao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-12-01
• Series: Journal of Functional Foods
• Subjects: Sea cucumber; Bioactive peptide; Anti-diabetic activity; Insulin resistance
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464620304485

In this study, anti-diabetic activity and potential mechanism of sea cucumber hydrolysates (SCH) were investigated in type II diabetic rats induced by streptozotocin. Results showed that SCH alleviated body weight loss, oral glucose tolerance and insulin resistance in diabetic rats. The fasting blood glucose level was markedly decreased by 40.39% after SCH administration. Moreover, lipid metabolism disorders in diabetic rats were attenuated to near normal after SCH treatment. Mechanism studies showed that the expressions of PI3K, p-Akt, p-GSK-3β and GLUT2/GLUT4 were significantly increased and the expression of p-IRS1 was significantly decreased after SCH treatment in liver and skeletal muscle tissues of diabetic rats. In addition, 25 peptides were screened as potential bioactive peptides by analyzing the intensity of mass spectra combined with PeptideRanker prediction. In summary, these findings suggested that SCH improved insulin resistance in diabetic rats via triggering PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, indicating that SCH may possess anti-diabetic effects.