Gene expression profile of liver obtained from liver-specific Me1-deficient mice challenged with high-fat diet

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has grown from a relatively unknown disease to the leading chronic liver disease globally. Malic enzyme 1 (ME1) is a cytosolic NADP+-dependent enzyme involved in the oxidative decarboxylation of malate to pyruvate while concomitantly generating nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) from NADP+. Previous genome-wide association studies have identified ME1 as a susceptibility gene for obesity and diabetes. This analysis was performed to understand the transcriptomic changes associated with hepatic Me1 loss in male mice challenged with high-fat diet. Overall design: To investigat the function of ME1 in NAFLD, we constructed Me1 hepatocyte-specific knockout mice (HKO) and wild-type littermates (Flox). We then performed gene expression profiling analysis using data obtained from RNA-seq of the livers of HKO and Flox, which were fed for 16 weeks with high-fat diet.