Microarray analysis of choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet-induced NAFLD animal model.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a broad spectrum of liver disorders ranging from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet-induced NAFLD animal model has traditionally been used to understand the molecular mechanisms of disease development and progression. Although this animal model shows a similar course of disease progression to human NAFLD, it does not develop comorbidities such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Therefore, its relevance to human NAFLD (what aspects of the disease etiology are recapitulated in this model?) is not fully understood. We applied microarray analysis to characterize its pathophysiology, and evaluate the similarity across species.非酒精性脂肪性肝病（Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, NAFLD）是一类涵盖广泛肝脏疾病谱的病症，病变范围从单纯性脂肪变性、非酒精性脂肪性肝炎，直至肝硬化与肝细胞癌。传统上，胆碱缺乏型限定L-氨基酸（choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined, CDAA）饮食诱导的NAFLD动物模型被用于解析疾病发生与进展的分子机制。尽管该动物模型的疾病进展进程与人类NAFLD高度相似，但并不会出现肥胖、2型糖尿病这类共病。因此，该模型与人类NAFLD的相关性（即该模型重现了疾病病因学的哪些层面）尚未完全明确。本研究通过基因芯片分析对该模型的病理生理学特征进行表征，并评估其与人类疾病的跨物种相似性。