Background: The antidiabetic drug teneligliptin is a novel dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor with a thiazolidine-specific structure. This study aimed to investigate whether teneligliptin can activate PPARγ directly and/or indirectly in cell-based assays.
Methods: Promoter assays using the reporter construct driven under the control of the SV40 promoter and the PPAR response element (PPRE) were performed. Luciferase activity was measured after a 3-day incubation of vector-transduced cells with various concentrations of teneligliptin.
Results: Treatment of the cells with 50 μM teneligliptin significantly transactivated a reporter gene. The presence of the PPARγ antagonist, GW9662, did not affect the activation of PPRE-reporter expression by teneligliptin.
Conclusion: We found that teneligliptin could increase PPARγ activity in cell-based assays irrespective of the PPARγ ligand-binding domain.
Keywords: adipogenesis; incretin; ligand; promoter assay; thiazolidinedione.