Metformin alleviates hepatic iron overload and ferroptosis through AMPK-ferroportin pathway in HFD-induced NAFLD

Summary: Metformin prevents progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the potential mechanism is not entirely understood. Ferroptosis, a recently recognized nonapoptotic form of regulated cell death, has been reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Here, we inv...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fangzhi Yue, Ying Shi, Shanyu Wu, Lin Xing, Dan He, Lin Wei, Anqi Qiu, Ryan Russell, Dongmei Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2023-12-01
Series:iScience
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004223026378
Description
Summary:Summary: Metformin prevents progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the potential mechanism is not entirely understood. Ferroptosis, a recently recognized nonapoptotic form of regulated cell death, has been reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Here, we investigated the effects of metformin on ferroptosis and its potential mechanism in NAFLD. We found that metformin prevented the progression of NAFLD, and alleviated hepatic iron overload (HIO), ferroptosis and upregulated ferroportin (FPN) expression in vivo and in vitro. Mechanically, metformin reduced the lysosomal degradation pathway of FPN through activation AMPK, thus upregulated the expression of FPN protein, alleviated HIO and ferroptosis, and prevented progression of NAFLD. These findings discover a mechanism of metformin, suggesting that targeting FPN may have the therapeutic potential for treating NAFLD and related disorders.
ISSN:2589-0042