Lipidomics approach in alcoholic liver disease mice with sphingolipid metabolism disorder: Alleviation using sea cucumber phospholipids

The sea cucumber phospholipids (SC-PLs) are involved in regulating multiple chronic lipid metabolism disorders, but their mechanism remains unknown. Herein, ethanol diet-induced C57BL/6N mice were established as alcoholic liver disease (ALD) models. Dietary intake of SC-PLs, including plasmenyl phosphatidylethanolamine (PlsEtn) and plasmanyl phosphatidylcholine (PlsCho), alleviated alcohol-induced hepatic lipid accumulation and abnormal elevation of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). The metabolic disorders of sphingolipid were relieved by SC-PLs in the livers of ALD mice. Notably, PlsEtn could improve anomalies more effectively than PlsCho. The mechanism results showed that SC-PLs inhibited the abnormal de novo synthesis of SLs and alleviated the dynamic transformation and accumulation of ceramide (Cer) and sphingomyelin. SC-PLs protected the liver by avoiding liver cells from Cer's pro-apoptotic. Additionally, seven sphingomyelin and four ceramide molecular species were identified as potential lipid biomarkers in the liver of ALD mice. Improving SLs homeostasis in ALD mice liver might be a critical pathway to explain the SC-PLs hepatoprotective effect.