Rat (Wistar) Liver CDAA Diet 4-8-12 Weeks Ensembl84 (BIBC)

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a major cause of liver fibrosis with increasing prevalence worldwide. Currently there are no approved drugs available. The development of new therapies is difficult as diagnosis and staging requires biopsies. Consequently, predictive plasma biomarkers would be useful for drug development. Here we present a multi-omics approach to characterize the molecular pathophysiology and to identify new plasma biomarkers in a choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined diet rat NASH model. We analyzed liver samples by RNA-Seq and proteomics, revealing disease relevant signatures and a high correlation between mRNA and protein changes. Comparison to human data showed an overlap of inflammatory, metabolic, and developmental pathways. Overall design: 48 samples: two conditions (CDAA vs. CSAA diet) x three timepoints (4 weeks, 8 week, 12 weeks) x eight animals per group