Quercetin Verses Metformin, Comparative Efficacy on the Lipid Metabolism Gene Expression in Different Organs of Diabetic Wistar Rats

Background: Type 2 Diabetes mellitus, is a metabolic disorder responsible for disturbance in carbohydrate, protein and lipid metabolism. The objective of current study was to evaluate the effect of Quercetin and Metformin on serum lipid profile and gene expression involved in lipid metabolism. Methods: Sixty-four (64) Wistar rats in a range of live body weight 196.75-198.19 grams, were divided in eight (8) groups (n=8 each); CONTROL, DIABETIC, DIAB+MET, DIAB+25Q, DIAB+50Q, NONDIAB+MET, NONDIAB+25Q and NONDIAB+50Q. A single dose of Streptozotocin drug @ 35 mg per kg was used for the induction of diabetes. The particular doses of Metformin and Quercetin were given by gavage on daily basis in their respective groups till the end of 14-week trial. Result: In case of FAS gene expression in liver, DIAB+MET (1.26±0.03), DIAB+25Q (1.31±0.02) and DIAB+50Q (1.19±0.04), suppresses the elevated expression compared to Diabetic group, while in case of SREBP-1c, both DIAB+MET (1.31±0.05) and DIAB+50Q (1.38±0.04) showed predominant results compared to DIAB+25Q. Moreover, for PPAR-α, DIAB+MET (0.87±0.06) exhibited considerable upregulation in comparison with DIAB+25Q (0.65±0.03) and DIAB+50Q (0.76±0.04). In adipose, FAS gene was significantly downregulated in DIAB+50Q (1.28±0.03) group as compared to other two diabetic treatment groups, however, for PPAR-γ gene, in term of significance both DIAB+MET (0.84±0.05) and DIAB+50Q (0.88±0.06) displayed statistically similar level of upregulation. In muscles, PPAR-α expression was best observed in DIAB+50Q (0.80±0.03) and DIAB+MET (0.76±0.02) compared to DIAB+25Q (0.59±0.03). Moreover, serum lipid profile (TC, HDL, TG, LDL and VLDL) was also significantly improved in Metformin and Quercetin treatment groups. In non-diabetic treatment groups, a non-significant difference was observed when compared to CONTROL group.