Objective To investigate the effects of Shenling Baizhu San on hepatic lipid metabolism in mice with metabolic associated fatty liver disease(MAFLD)based on the KLF16/PPAR-α signaling pathway.Methods C57 BL/6 mice were randomly divided into normal group,model group and Shenling Baizhu San low-,medium-and high-dose groups(2.685,5.369,10.738 g·kg-1·d-1),with seven mice in each group.Except for the normal group,the mice in the other groups were given high-fat diet for 12 weeks to replicate the MAFLD model.After the modeling,intragastric administration was started once a day for five weeks.The body mass and liver coefficient of mice were measured.HE and oil red O staining were used to observe the pathological changes of liver tissue in mice.The levels of serum alanine aminotransferase(ALT),aspartate aminotransferase(AST),triglyceride(TG)and total cholesterol(TC)were detected.The mRNA expression levels of PPAR-α,KLF16,FAS and SREBP-1c in liver tissue were detected by RT-qPCR.Results Compared with the normal group,the body mass,liver mass and liver coefficient of mice in the model group were significantly increased(P＜0.05,P＜0.01).The levels of serum TG,TC,ALT and AST were significantly increased(P＜0.001).There were a large number of vacuoles in the cytoplasm of the liver tissue,and a large number of red-stained lipid droplets appeared in the cytoplasm.The NAS pathological score and oil red O staining IOD value were significantly increased(P＜0.05,P＜0.001).The mRNA expressions of PPAR-α and KLF16 in liver tissue were significantly down-regulated(P＜0.01,P＜0.001),and the mRNA expressions of FAS and SREBP-1c was significantly up-regulated(P＜0.05,P＜0.001).Compared with the model group,the body mass,liver mass and liver coefficient of mice in the high-dose group of Shenling Baizhu San were significantly decreased(P＜0.05).The levels of serum TG,TC and ALT in the low-,medium-and high-dose groups of Shenling Baizhu San were significantly decreased(P＜0.05,P＜0.01,P＜0.001).The serum AST level of mice in the medium-and high-dose groups of Shenling Baizhu San was significantly decreased(P＜0.01,P＜0.001).The pathological changes of liver tissue in each administration group were significantly improved,and the orange-red lipid droplets in the cytoplasm of hepatocytes were significantly reduced.The NAS pathological score and oil red O staining IOD value of the high-dose group of Shenling Baizhu San were significantly reduced(P＜0.05,P＜0.01);the mRNA expressions of PPAR-α and KLF16 in liver tissue of mice in Shenling Baizhu San low-,medium-and high-dose groups were significantly up-regulated(P＜0.05,P＜0.01,P＜0.001),and the mRNA expressions of FAS and SREBP-1c were significantly down-regulated(P＜0.05,P＜0.01,P＜0.001).Conclusion Shenling Baizhu San can significantly improve hepatic lipid metabolism in MAFLD mice,and its mechanism may be related to transcriptional regulation of nuclear receptor KLF16/PPAR-α signaling pathway.