Effect of thermoneutral housing (as compared to room temparture) on liver gene expression in mice fed a control diet or a western diet

Liver gene expression was assessed in male mice after they had previously been fed a control diet or a western diet for 13 weeks. Mice fed the control diet were healthy. Mice fed the western diet became obese. In each diet, half of the mice were housed at room temperature (22°C) and the other half was housed at thermoneutrality (30°C). Overall, this experiment allowed us to investigate the effect of housing temperature on liver gene expression in healthy mice and in obese mice. 10-week-old mice were either fed a control diet (Ctrl; n= 16 mice) or a western diet (WD; n=16 mice) for 13 weeks. Control diet (Ctrl) contains 8.4% calories from fat, 19.3% calories from carbohydrates and 72.4% calories from proteins. Western diet (WD) contains 42% calories from fat, 42.7% calories from carbohydrates (mainly sucrose) and 15.2% calories from proteins and 0.2% cholesterol. In each diet, half of the mouse group was housed at room temperature (RT, 22°C) and the other half of the group was housed at thermoneutrality (TN, 30°C°).