Influence of dietary whole egg on the transcriptome in Zucker Diabetic Fatty rats

Here we analyzed how whole egg consumption in Zucker Diabetic Fatty (ZDF) rats alters microRNA and mRNA expression across the adipose, liver, kidney, and prefrontal cortex tissue. Male ZDF (fa/fa) rats (n = 12) and their lean controls (fa/+) (n = 12) were obtained at 6 wk of age. Rats had ad libitum access to water and were randomly assigned to a modified semi-purified AIN93G casein-based diet or a whole egg-based diet, both providing 20% protein (w/w). TotalRNA libraries were prepared using QuantSeq 3' mRNA-Seq and Lexogen smallRNA library prep kits and were further sequenced on an Illumina HighSeq3000. Differential gene expression was conducted using DESeq2 in R and Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted P- values controlling for false discovery rate at 5%.We identified 9 microRNAs and 583 genes that were differentially expressed in response to 8 wk of consuming whole egg-based diets. Examination of two different diets on mRNA and microRNA across multiple tissues in ZDF rats