Effect of dietary fatty acids on lipid profile and gene expression in blood, skeletal muscle, adipose, liver and intestine

Abstract

Lipotoxicity is the phenomenon that occurs when a tissue accumulates excessive amounts of lipid, which can induce a range of events at the cellular level from dysfunction to apoptosis and at the systems level inducing various disease states such as metabolic syndrome or cardiovascular disease. The effects of specific fatty acid classes have been implicated in the progression or protection of humans and animals from type 2 diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. We examined the effect of feeding diets enriched in various fatty acid classes (saturated, poly‐unsaturated, highly‐unsaturated and mixed saturated/highly‐unsaturated) on lipid accumulation, lipid profile and gene expression. Eight, four week old C57BL6 mice were fed one of four AIN‐93G diets enriched with six percent lipid for eight weeks. After eight weeks animal were sacrificed, tissues collected, snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at −80°C until analysis. Whole blood was used to measure liver function and glucose concentrations, while plasma was used for lipid analyses. Total lipids were extracted from adipose, liver and skeletal muscle and analyzed for fatty acid profile, as well as cholesterol and triglyceride accumulation. Gene expression was measured via qPCR in each tissue for GAPDH, FATP 1–6, FAS, FABP4, PPAR α/β/γ, SREBP1 & 2, NPC1L1 and SRBI. qPCR results confirmed via western blot. [Supported by NIH GM56850]