Abstract
Lipid metabolism disorder is one of the significant risk factors for a multitude of human diseases and has become a serious threat to human health. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of phenolics from poplar-type propolis on regulating lipid metabolism by using cell models of steatosis induced by palmitic acid (PA). Our study shows that phenolic esters have higher lipid-lowering activities than phenolic acids, especially for three caffeic acid esters, including caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), caffeic acid cinnamyl ester (CACE), and caffeic acid benzyl ester (CABE). Most notably, CACE presents prominent properties to prevent intracellular lipid accumulation and to amend extracellular adipokine secretion abnormalities. In addition, our results firstly reveal that CACE can alleviate lipid metabolism disorder through mediating protein kinase RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6) signaling pathway-associated protein expression, suppressing endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and activating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) by distinct upregulation of PPARα and downregulation of PPARγ.