%0 Journal Article
%T Discovery of Anti-Hypercholesterolemia Agents Targeting LXRα from Marine Microorganism-Derived Natural Products.
%A Fang Y
%A She J
%A Zhang X
%A Gu T
%A Xie D
%A Luo X
%A Yi X
%A Gao C
%A Liu Y
%A Zhang C
%A Tang L
%A Zhou X
%J J Nat Prod
%V 87
%N 2
%D 2024 02 23
%M 38334086
%F 4.803
%R 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.3c01029
%X A strategy integrating in silico molecular docking with LXRα and phenotypic assays was adopted to discover anti-hypercholesterolemia agents in a small library containing 205 marine microorganism-derived natural products, collected by our group in recent years. Two fumitremorgin derivatives, 12R,13S-dihydroxyfumitremorgin C (1) and tryprostatin A (3), were identified as potential LXRα agonists, by real-time qPCR and Western blot (WB) analysis, together with a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assay. The anti-hypercholesterolemic effects of 1 and 3, together with their mechanisms, were investigated in depth using different cell and mouse models, among which the study of LXRα is of crucial importance. Compound 1 or 3 exhibited the capacity to effectively reverse excessive lipid accumulation in a hepatic steatosis cell model and significantly reduce liver damage and blood cholesterol levels in high cholesterol diet (HCD)-fed wild-type mice, whereas those beneficial effects were completely nullified in HCD-fed LXRα-knockout mice. Furthermore, 1 and 3 outperformed common LXRα agonists by suppressing the expression of sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP1) in HCD-fed mice, mitigating lipotoxicity. Thus, this study highlights the discovery of two marine microorganism-derived anti-hypercholesterolemia agents targeting LXRα.