Hepatic transcriptome analysis of control, acute pancreatitis and severe acute pancreatitis mice

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the hepatic transcriptome in the control group, acute pancreatitis, and severe acute pancreatitis, in order to identify metabolic gene changes during pancreatitis. Methods: 6-week Balb/c mice were subjected to AP (caerulein), SAP (caerulein and LPS) and control (saline), and mice liver tissues were harvested at 24 hours for RNA preparation (n=8 each group). Results: Among 11952 mapped genes, 8977 differentially expressed genes were identified by RNA-seq, including 351 genes induced in AP compare to Control and 5249 genes down regulated in SAP compare to AP. The genes up regulated were mainly related to fatty acid oxidation and ketone body synthesis especially Cpt2 and Acadvl, while genes that down regulated were associated with energy metabolism and inflammation. The overlap of two gene sets were 96 genes that involved in fatty acid metabolism. Conclusions: Our study revealed that in AP, genes associated with ketone body synthesis are upregulated in liver, in SAP, fatty acid oxidation related genes are downregulated in liver. Our data revealed the crosstalk between pancreas and liver, illustrated the difference of metabolism in AP and SAP. Liver mRNA profiles of 6 weeks old wild type, AP and SAP mice were generated by sequencing in eight repeat,in three mouse models.