Yinchen Wuling San ameliorates high-fat diet-induced metabolic-associated fatty liver disease in rats by remodeling the gut microbiota

doi:10.4254/wjh.118607

Advanced Search

BPG is committed to discovery and dissemination of knowledge

Home / Archive / Volume 18, Issue 6

This Article

(1)

(0)

(1)

Peer-Review Report of This Article

CrossCheck and Google Search of This Article

Academic Rules and Norms of This Article

Citation of this article

Corresponding Author of This Article

Research Domain of This Article

Article-Type of This Article

Open-Access Policy of This Article

Times Cited Counts in Google of This Article

Journal Information of This Article

Publication Name

World Journal of Hepatology

ISSN

1948-5182

Publisher of This Article

Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA

- Full Article (XML)

Basic Study

Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.

World J Hepatol. Jun 27, 2026; 18(6): 118607
Published online Jun 27, 2026. doi: 10.4254/wjh.118607

Yinchen Wuling San ameliorates high-fat diet-induced metabolic-associated fatty liver disease in rats by remodeling the gut microbiota

Yi Zhang, Jie Liu, Ai-Si Huang, Yu-Fei Wang, Jie Cao, Mu-Lan Li, Dan-Dan Shi, Yi-Lin Hu, Qin Deng, Piao Long, Bi-Chen Ai

Yi Zhang, Jie Liu, Ai-Si Huang, Yu-Fei Wang, Jie Cao, Mu-Lan Li, Dan-Dan Shi, Yi-Lin Hu, Qin Deng, Piao Long, Bi-Chen Ai, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China

Author contributions: Zhang Y contributed to conceptualization, write the original draft; Zhang Y, Liu J, and Shi DD contributed to data curation; Huang AS, Wang YF, Cao J, Li ML, Shi DD, Hu YL, Deng Q, Long P, and Ai BC reviewed and edited the manuscript; Liu J contributed to methodology; Huang AS, Wang YF, and Li ML contributed to visualization; Cao J, Hu YL, Deng Q and Long P contributed to investigation; Ai BC contributed to funding acquisition, supervision. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Supported by Major Scientific Research Project for High-level Talents in Health and Wellness of Hunan Province, China, No. R2023130; Scientific Research Project of Hunan Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China, No. D2022016; and Postgraduate Scientific Research and Innovation Project of Hunan Provincial Department of Education, China, No. LXBZZ2024155.

Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Animal Ethics and Welfare Committee of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine (approval No. LLBH-202309190006).

Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.

ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.

Data sharing statement: The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive repository under accession No. PRJNA1355037. No additional data are available.

Corresponding author: Bi-Chen Ai, Professor, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, No. 300 Xueshi Road, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China. 003626@hnucm.edu.cn

Received: January 7, 2026
Revised: January 30, 2026
Accepted: March 30, 2026
Published online: June 27, 2026
Processing time: 164 Days and 5.9 Hours

Core Tip

Core Tip: Yinchen Wuling San (YCWLS), a classical traditional Chinese medicine formula, alleviated the phenotypes of metabolic-associated fatty liver disease in rats fed a high-fat diet. This improvement was evidenced by enhanced liver histopathology, reduced levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase, and corrected dyslipidemia. Profiling of the 16S rRNA revealed that YCWLS reshaped the gut microbiota by significantly enriching Akkermansia and Lachnospiraceae while decreasing Firmicutes-associated taxa. Although there were only modest and non-significant increases in fecal short-chain fatty acids, the observed shift in microbiota was associated with metabolic improvements, suggesting a microbiota-linked mechanism through which YCWLS exerts its effects on metabolic-associated fatty liver disease.