Expression analysis revealed that UDCA-LPE exerted profound anti-inflammatory properties in HFD and MCD diet-induced liver injury. Expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) was up-regulated 3.8-fold, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), was increased 4.6-fold, and TNF-α was elevated 14-fold in HFD mice, Fluorouracil in vivo whereas all three genes were down-regulated nearly to normalization in HFD mice treated with UDCA-LPE (Fig. 5A,C,E). Steatohepatitis due to the MCD diet was accompanied by even higher expression levels: nine-fold for MCP1, 22.3-fold for VCAM1, and 22.6-fold for TNF-α (Fig. 5B,D,F). Nevertheless, administration of UDCA-LPE was capable of markedly decreasing the expression of these proinflammatory

genes by 50%-75% (Fig. 5B,D,F). These results were further confirmed on the protein level for MCP-1 in both mouse models (Supporting Fig. 3). Increased cellular content of the potent lipid mediator LPC has been implicated in different inflammatory diseases. Analysis of hepatic phospholipid composition in lipid extracts showed an abundance of proinflammatory LPC in both HFD and MCD mice with up to two- to five-fold increase

in LPC concentrations, respectively (Fig. 6A,B). In contrast, lipid extracts of liver tissue of HFD and MCD mice administered with UDCA-LPE showed a pronounced decrease in intrahepatic LPC pools down to baseline levels in HFD mice as well as a reduction of LPC by INK 128 order almost one-third in mice on the MCD diet (Fig. 6A,B). In addition to proinflammatory LPC, we studied lipid peroxidation in MCD mice as a consequence of bundant reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation in fatty livers. In contrast to HFD mice, which did not display increased lipid peroxidation (data not shown), our results showed a marked rise in lipid hydroperoxide concentrations by nearly 10-fold in MCD-induced NASH. UDCA-LPE treatment

strongly inhibited the generation of this proinflammatory lipid intermediate, with a decrease in lipid hydroperoxides of 73% (Fig. 6C). NAFLD is characterized by changes in hepatic lipid homeostasis and fatty acid metabolism. Therefore, medchemexpress we aimed to study the expression of genes involved in de novo lipogenesis, triglyceride synthesis, and desaturation of fatty acids. As expected for the HFD model, we found enhanced de novo lipogenesis with up-regulation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 (ACC1), fatty acid synthetase (FASN), and their transcriptional regulator sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c (SREBP1c) (Fig. 7A). In contrast, HFD mice treated with UDCA-LPE showed a decrease in ACC1 and SREBP1c transcripts to levels of control mice, as well as a marked reduction in FASN expression (Fig. 7A) and protein levels (Supporting Fig. 4) of almost 50%. As for the MCD diet, which causes an impairment of de novo lipogenesis,22 UDCA-LPE administration resulted in partial restoration of expression levels of lipogenic genes (Supporting Fig. 5).