A pan-PPAR ligand induces hepatic fatty acid oxidation in PPARalpha-/- mice possibly through PGC-1 mediated PPARdelta coactivation.

Tetradecylthioacetic acid (TTA) is a hypolipidemic modified fatty acid and a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) ligand. The mechanisms of TTA-mediated effects seem to involve the PPARs, but the effects have not been assigned to any specific PPAR subtype. PPARalpha-/- mice were employed to study the role of PPARalpha after TTA treatment. We also performed in vitro transfection assays to obtain mechanistic knowledge of how TTA affected PPAR activation in the presence of PPARgamma coactivator (PGC)-1 and steroid receptor coactivators (SRC)-1 and SRC-2, which are associated with energy balance and mitochondrial biogenesis. We show that TTA increases hepatic fatty acid beta-oxidation in PPARalpha-/- mice. TTA acts as a pan-PPAR ligand in vitro, and PGC-1, SRC-1 and SRC-2 have cell type and PPAR-specific effects together with TTA. In the absence of exogenous ligands, SRC-1 did not induce PPAR activity, while PGC-1 was the most potent PPAR coactivator. When the coactivators were overexpressed, pronounced effects of TTA were observed especially for PPARdelta and PPARgamma. We conclude that PPARalpha is involved in, but not required for, the hypolipidemic mechanisms of TTA. It appears that the activity of PPARdelta, with substantial contribution of nuclear receptor coactivators, PGC-1 in special, is conducive to TTA's mechanism of action.