Emodin

Healthy C57BL/J mice (male, age 7 weeks, n = 40) were purchased from HFK Bioscience Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China). All mice were housed in the specified pathogens free for 1 week before experiments. Animals were randomly divided into 4 groups according to their diets and treatments: normal chow group (NC, n = 10), HFD group (HFD, n = 10), emodin treatment group (EM, n = 10), and HFD group with emodin (EM-HFD, n = 10). 2 animals in the HFD group and 1 in the HFD-EM group were detected with hyperglycemia. Additionally, 1 mouse in the HFD-EM group died in the intragastric administration. So, we excluded 4 mice in the NC group (2 mice) and EM group (2 mice). After 12 weeks of feeding with normal chow or HFD diet, mice were administrated with emodin (in DMSO) (50 mg/kg) [13 (link)] (cat no. 518-82-1; Solarbio Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China) or bacteria-free water of the same frequency and the same volume every other day for 6 weeks (Figure 1(a)). Body weights were measured weekly. All experiments were performed according to the guidance of the Ethics Committee for Experimental Research from the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University.