Research Article In Vitro Screening for Antihepatic Steatosis Active Components within Coptidis Rhizoma Alkaloids Extract Using Liver Cell Extraction with HPLC Analysis and a Free Fatty Acid-Induced

Copyright © 2013 Hui Fan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A high-throughput method was developed and applied to screen for the active antihepatic steatosis components within Coptidis Rhizoma Alkaloids Extract (CAE).This method was a combination of two previously described assays: HepG2 cell extraction with HPLC analysis and a free fatty acid-induced (FFA) hepatic steatosis HepG2 cell assay. Two alkaloids within CAE, berberine and coptisine, were identified by HepG2 cell extraction with HPLC analysis as high affinity components for HepG2. These alkaloids were also determined to be active and potent compounds capable of lowering triglyceride (TG) accumulation in the FFA-induced hepatic steatosis HepG2 cell assay. This remarkable inhibition of TG accumulation