Male C57BL/6J mice (9 weeks old) were obtained from Clea Japan (Tokyo, Japan), and maintained at 23 ± 2°C under a 12:12 h light–dark cycle (lights on from 7.00am to 7.00pm). The mice were individually housed in plastic cages and fed a laboratory diet (CE-2; Clea Japan) for 1 week to acclimatize them to the metabolic conditions.
WB was purchased from Nisshin Pharma (Wheat bran DF; Tokyo, Japan). The WB was steamed using a twin screw extruder (EA-20; Suehiro EPM Corp., Mie, Japan) and termed ‘steamed WB’. The nutritional content of the steamed WB is shown inTable 1 . Milk casein, corn oil, cellulose, AIN-76 mineral mixture, AIN-76 vitamin mixture, and gelatinized potato starch were purchased from Oriental Yeast Co. (Tokyo, Japan), and sucrose was purchased from Wako Pure Chemical Industries (Osaka, Japan). Lignin was purchased from Kanto Chemical Co. (Tokyo, Japan).
WB was purchased from Nisshin Pharma (Wheat bran DF; Tokyo, Japan). The WB was steamed using a twin screw extruder (EA-20; Suehiro EPM Corp., Mie, Japan) and termed ‘steamed WB’. The nutritional content of the steamed WB is shown in
Nutritional content of steamed wheat bran.
| Component | Content (%) |
| Protein | 18.9 |
| Fat | 4.2 |
| Carbohydrate | 20.2 |
| Dietary fiber | 47.9 |
| Moisture | 2.3 |
| Ash | 6.5 |