Spexin alleviates hypertension, hyperuricaemia, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance in high fructose diet induced metabolic syndrome in rats via enhancing PPAR-γ and AMPK and inhibiting IL-6 and TNF-α

Spexin is a novel peptide implicated in obesity and energy homeostasis. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effect of spexin on blood pressure, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia in rats with metabolic syndrome (MS) induced by high-fructose diet (HFD) and the possible underlying mechanism. Forty adult male rats were randomly assigned into four equal groups; Control, Spexin, HFD and HFD + spexin. Induction of the MS with HFD was associated with increased body mass index, elevated blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin, uric acid, advanced glycation end products and insulin resistance, interlekin-6, tumour necrosis factor-alpha together with dyslipidemia, low-serum spexin, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors-gamma (PPAR-gamma) and adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK). Spexin attenuated MS-induced deleterious effects which can be attributed to activation of PPAR-gamma and AMPK as well as inhibiting inflammation. These findings indicate that spexin could be a beneficial complementary agent for metabolic syndrome treatment.