Aim To investigate the effect of curcumin against high-fat-diet induced C57BL/6J mice bone changes and the correlation between the expression of cathepsin K and curcumin.Methods Curcumin treated C57BL/6J mice had been on high fat diet for 12 weeks.The HE, Alizarin red S staining and Safranin O/fast green staining of femur were employed to evaluate bone microstructure, bone metabolism and bone development.The expressions of cathepsin K were assessed by Western blot and immunohistochemical staining.Results Histopathological results showed that curcumin could improve the destruction of trabecular bone structure, cartilage development and bone calcification.Biomechanical results proved that curcumin could improve the bone strength of the type 2 diabetic mice induced by high fat.The results of immunohistochemistry and Western blot assay indicated that curcumin could significantly inhibit the expression of cathepsin K in bone tissues of mice.Conclusion Curcumin can increase bone strength, improve bone microstructure, and enhance the degree of bone calcification, which may be achieved by inhibiting the expression of cathepsin K.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) on anthracycline-induced car-diotoxicity (AIC) in animal models. Methods: Separate systematic searches for preclinical studies were performed in the PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Database, Chinese Sci-entific Journal Database, and Wanfang Data from inception to August 2019. The primary outcomes were echocardiography, serum assays for myocardial enzymograms, histological assessments, and electro-cardiograms. The secondary outcomes mainly included body weight and safety evaluations. The protocol is registered on PROSPERO (CRD42019145819). RevMan (V.5.3) was used for meta-analysis. Results: We identified 10 studies from 9 international scientific publications describing the efficacy of TCM on AIC animal models. All the included studies reported that, compared with animal model without any intervention, TCM significantly improved ventricular function, cardiac biomarkers, electrocardio-graph results, and cardiac fibrosis. Improved survival rates and body mass indices were also observed with TCM. We further pooled the available data from four studies (63 animals) for the meta-analysis and the results showed that, compared with models without any intervention, TCM significantly increased the ejection fraction by 14.13％ (95％ CI, 9.96-18.29) and fraction shortening by 8.66％ (95％ CI, 6.05-11.26). Creatine kinase-MB (SMD = -2.49, 95％ CI: -3.12 to -1.85) and lactate dehydrogenase (SMD =-2.78, 95％ CI:-3.45 to-2.12) were also significantly decreased by TCM. Conclusions: TCM is effective in improving AIC in animal models and has tremendous potential to be translated to treat AIC in clinical practice. Additionally, the systematic review and meta-analysis of an-imal experiments may be valuable in enhancing and guiding animal experiments and promoting the transformation of the results.

Objective: To determine the effects of ginsenoside rg3 on the body weight of C57BL/6J obese mice and to investigate its underlying weight loss mechanisms with a focus on white fat browning-related factors. Methods: Eight-week-old C57BL/6J male mice were fed a high-fat diet for 12 successive weeks to construct the obese model. C57BL/6J male mice were fed a standard chow diet to construct normal control group. After 8 weeks of intervention with ginsenoside rg3, the food intake, body weight, body fat mass, blood sugar, and lipid profiles of the mice in each group were detected. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining was used to observe the histological morphology of the adipose tissues. Real-time poly-merase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blotting (WB) were applied to detect the gene and protein expression levels of peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor gama (PPARγ), Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator -1alpha (PGC-1α), PR domain containing 16 (PRDM16), and uncoupling protein 1 (UCP-1).Results: Compared to normal control group mice, the body weight, food intake, body fat composition, and blood lipid levels of model group mice increased significantly. After 8 weeks of intervention with ginsenoside rg3, body weight, body fat composition, food intake, and blood lipid profiles decreased. HE staining showed that ginsenoside rg3 can improve white adipocyte hypertrophy to a certain extent. RT-PCR and WB demonstrated that ginsenoside rg3 can increase the mRNA and protein expression levels of PPARγ, PGC-1α, PRDM16, and UCP-1 in the adipose tissues of obese mice. Conclusion: The weight reduction effect of ginsenoside rg3 may be related to the promotion of white fat browning.