Microarray analysis of choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet-induced NAFLD animal model.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a broad spectrum of liver disorders ranging from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet-induced NAFLD animal model has traditionally been used to understand the molecular mechanisms of disease development and progression. Although this animal model shows a similar course of disease progression to human NAFLD, it does not develop comorbidities such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Therefore, its relevance to human NAFLD (what aspects of the disease etiology are recapitulated in this model?) is not fully understood. We applied microarray analysis to characterize its pathophysiology, and evaluate the similarity across species. Gene expression in liver tissue was measured after 1, 2, 4, 9 weeks dietary intervention. There are 40 samples in the study which belonged to 8 groups, and each group contains 5 different samples.