Network Analysis of Hepatic Genes Responded to High-Fat Diet in C57BL/6J Mice: Nutrigenomics Data Mining from Recent Research Findings

Abstract

Obesity and its associated complications, including diabetes, dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis, and some cancers, have been a global health problem with a rapid increase of the obese population. In this study, we selected 31 obesity candidate genes in the liver of high-fat-induced obese C57BL/6J mice through investigation of literature search and analyzed functional protein-protein interaction of the genes using the STRING database. Most of the obesity candidate genes were closely connected through lipid metabolism, and in particular acyl-coenzyme A oxidase 1 appeared to be a core obesity gene. Overall, genes involved in fatty acid beta-oxidation, fatty acid synthesis, and gluconeogenesis were up-regulated, and genes involved in sterol biosynthesis, insulin signaling, and oxidative stress defense system were down-regulated with a high-fat diet. Future identification of core obesity genes and their functional targets is expected to provide a new way to prevent obesity by phytochemicals or functional foods on the basis of food and nutritional genomics.

Resistance to Diet-Induced Obesity and Associated Metabolic Perturbations in Haploinsufficient Monocarboxylate Transporter 1 Mice

“…Thus, an enhancement of fatty acid oxidation occurring in the liver [29] and/or in muscle [28], [29], a decrease of lipogenesis in the liver [31], or alterations of lipogenesis/lipolysis in the adipose tissue [42], [43] are common findings in these models. In contrast to the upregulation of genes involved in lipid metabolism in the liver of HFD fed MCT1 +/+ mice, an observation in agreement with published observations [44], the expression of the same genes was relatively unaffected in the liver of HFD fed MCT1 +/ − mice. Thus, no apparent enhancement in hepatic lipid synthesis and storage capacity is taking place in MCT1 +/ − mice exposed to HFD.…”

Effect of high fat diet on paternal sperm histone distribution and male offspring liver gene expression

“…We examined 20 genes that play roles in fatty acid metabolism and oxidative stress response, since these pathways have been shown to be deregulated under high fat diet. 32,33 Five genes were differentially expressed between male offspring at 24 weeks of age from HFD vs. LFD-treated fathers, including metallothionein-1 and ¡2 (Mt1, Mt2), fatty acid synthase (Fasn), P450 cytochrome oxidoreductase (Por), and acetyl-CoA carboxylasea (Acaca) (Fig. 2).…”

Potential translational targets revealed by linking mouse grooming behavioral phenotypes to gene expression using public databases

“…The confidence that a given protein-protein interaction represents a functional relationship is reported by the STRING database as an Interaction Confidence ranging from 0 to 1. To increase the predictive power of this network, we generated a protein-protein interactome for the 31 candidate protein products using a stringent Interaction Confidence of at least 0.8, a threshold that is high enough to manage false positives and is commonly used in the literature (Kim et al, 2010, Rybarczyk-Filho et al, 2011). Cytoscape software (Cline et al, 2007) was used to visualize these interactions in a web of nodes and edges, organized for visualization using a layout algorithm (Fig.…”