STK11 and Insulin resistance: In a study simulating insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease with high-fat-diet fed obese C57BL/6 mice, treatment of the mice with ZnO NPs at 0.5 mg/kg body-weight every second day for 15 days was found to be beneficial and to decrease insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis through a signaling pathway involving Silent mating type Information Regulation 2 homolog 1 (SIRT1) (which has two zinc finger motifs that require Zn2+ binding for activity), LKB1, and AMPK [279].