Effects of LIPOSA-T pharmacopuncture on localized fat as a fat dissolving injection via regulation of fat metabolism.

Background: Excessive fat deposition in localized adiposity is known to induce severe medical diseases as well as aesthetic problems. Of late, LIPOSA-T pharmacopuncture, a new herbal pharmacopuncture consisting of the cortex of and bark of , is developed as a non-surgical injection for dissolving localized fat deposits.

Methods: The network pharmacology analysis was carried out with the target gene sets of constituents of and . Male C57BL/6 J mice were induced obesity and injected LIPOSA-T pharmacopuncture into inguinal fat pad. The fat weight and size were analyzed using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.

Results: The possible pathways and mechanism of action of LIPOSA-T were found to be mainly related to the fatty acid biosynthesis, glycolysis and glycogenesis in KEGG Pathways database. Subcutaneous injection of the LIPOSA-T pharmacopuncture significantly reduced the inguinal fat tissues weight and enlarged adipocyte size. In addition, the phosphorylated IRS with the PEPCK and G6p expressions were increased by the LIPOSA-T injection. Following the increase of AMPK expression, the fatty acid synthesis enzyme and lipolytic enzymes were regulated by the LIPOSA-T.

Conclusions: Taken together, LIPOSA-T exerted the catabolic effects on fat deposition in obesity by regulating the glucose production, lipid synthesis and TAG hydrolysis in consistent with the prediction results. Based on the findings, LIPOSA-T pharmacopuncture is expected to be a dissolving injection for localized fat.