Quinoa Peptides Alleviate Obesity in Mice Induced by a High-Fat Diet via Regulating of the PPAR-α/γ Signaling Pathway and Gut Microbiota

Scope The obesity epidemic continues to be a major global public health threat with limited effective treatments. Peptides are a group of promising bioactive molecules. Both in vivo and in vitro studies have demonstrated that quinoa has potential prebiotic benefits. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the influence of quinoa peptides (QP) consumption on obesity and its underlying mechanisms in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced mice. Methods and results QP (1000 mg kg −1 day −1 ) is administered to HFD mice for 8 weeks, and is found to significantly reduce the body weight, and plasma levels of triacylglycerol (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) compare to the HFD group. In addition, QP significantly decreases lipid accumulation in the liver caused by HFD. The liver transcriptome analysis shows that the alleviation of QP on obesity is related to the PPAR signaling pathway. QP upregulates the expressions of PPAR-α and its related genes and downregulates the expressions of PPAR-γ and its downstream genes. Furthermore, QP remodels the community composition of gut microbiota by lowering the ratio of Firmicutes c Bacteroidetes (F/B). Conclusion These findings suggest that QP consumption alleviates HFD-induced obesity by regulating the PPAR-α/γ signaling pathway in the liver and community structure of gut microbiota.