Antiobesity and Antioxidative Effect of Fermented Brown Rice Using In Vitro with In Vivo Caenorhabditis elegans Model

Naturally occurring phytochemicals from plants or grains are crucial in reducing various metabolic disorders. Bioactive phytonutrients are abundant in the Asian dietary staple, brown rice. This research evaluated the impact of lactic acid bacteria (LABs) bioconversion and fermentation on antioxidant and antiobesity activities and ferulic acid content in brown rice. The combination of bioconversion with Pediococcus acidilactici MNL5 among all LABs used showed a synergistic impact with 24 h of solid-state brown rice fermentation. The 24-h MNL5 fermented brown rice (FBR) demonstrated the most potent pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity (85.5 +/- 1.25%) compared to raw brown rice (RBR) (54.4 +/- 0.86%). The antioxidant potential of MNL5-FBR was also found to be highest in the DPPH assay (124.40 +/- 2.40 mg Trolox Equiv./100 g, DW), ABTS assay (130.52 +/- 2.32 mg Trolox Equiv./100 g, DW), and FRAP assay (116.16 +/- 2.42 mg Trolox Equiv./100 g, DW). Based on higher antioxidant and antiobesity activities, samples were quantified for ferulic acid content using the HPLC-MS/MS approach. Furthermore, C. elegans supplementation with FBR showed enhanced life span and lipid reduction in fluorescence microscope analysis compared to the control. Our results indicate that the expression study using the C. elegans model (N2 and Daf-2 models) fat gene was conducted, showing a lowering of obesity ability in FBR-fed worms. Our study indicates that FBR has improved antioxidant and antiobesity actions, especially in MNL5-FBR, and can be employed to develop functional foods that combat obesity.