The role of endothelial Zeb2 in the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Zinc-Finger E-Box-binding Homeobox (Zeb)2 has an anti-angiogenic and anti-fibrotic role in liver endothelial cells, but its role in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease remains unknown. We performed RNA sequencing on endothelial cells sorted from wild-type mice and mice lacking Zeb2 specifically in endothelial cells kept on a western or standard diet to identify RNA expression changes and gene ontology terms affected by knock-out of endothelial Zeb2, western diet challenge, or the combination of both challenges. Overall design: Endothelial cells were isolated by density centrifugation and FACS from livers of wild-type and endothelial-specific Zeb2 knock-out mice (n=6 per group) kept on regular chow or challenged by a western diet. RNA was isolated using Reliaprep (Promega) and was sequenced according to the Smart-seq2 method.