Anthocyanins from dietary black soybean potentiate glucose uptake in L6 rat skeletal muscle cells via up-regulating phosphorylated Akt and GLUT4.

Graphical abstract Highlights • BSSCE and Cy3G significantly augmented the glucose uptake in L6 myotubes. • BSSCE and Cy3G modulated glucose uptake via Akt/GLUT4 signal pathway in L6 myotubes. • BSSCE displays potential as a diet approach for diabetes therapy. Abstract In order to illustrate the hypoglycemic mechanism of the dietary anthocyanins from black soybean, the effects of black soybean seed coat extract (BSSCE) and cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (Cy3G), the major anthocyanins of BSSCE on regulation of Akt and GLUT4 in L6 rat skeletal muscle cells were studied. BSSCE and Cy3G significantly augmented the glucose uptake in L6 myotubes in comparison to the normal control (p < 0.05). Especially, at 150 μg/mL of BSSCE and 40 μM of Cy3G treatment, the 2-NBDG uptake level were increased by 1.81-fold and 1.90-fold with that of normal control, respectively. Furthermore, the expressions of p-Akt and GLUT4 were also increased and the GLUT4 translocation was promoted by BSSCE and Cy3G, which indicated the involvement of the Akt/GLUT4 signal pathway in the hypoglycemic mechanism of BSSCE. Overall findings revealed that Cy3G-enriched BSSCE might be a promising functional food or medicine for the treatment of T2DM and its associated metabolic disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]