Design, syntheses and lipid accumulation inhibitory activities of novel resveratrol mimics.

Hispidine was initially discovered from Ficus Hispida for cardiovascular protection. In this paper, hispidine derivatives, which contain a novel resveratrol-like scaffold, have been designed, synthesized, and assayed as agents against lipid accumulations in 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes. Six hispidine derivatives have the activity of reducing TG in 3T3-L1 adipocytes in dosage-dependent manner. The most active compound can reduce the lipid accumulation up to 78.4% at 10 μM qPCR and Western blotting results demonstrate that the two most active compounds inhibit both lipodenesis and adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells through (1) increasing the phosphorylations of AMPK and ACC, promoting SIRT1 expression. These three proteins are key regulators for lipogenesis and energy metabolism. (2) Decreasing the expressions of PPARγ, sREBP-1c, and FABP4, which are pivotal regulators for adipogenesis. Overall, this work proves that hispidine derivatives diminish the lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 cell line by downregulating lipogenic and adipogenic pathways.