Effects of acute maximal exercise and high-fat feeding on the mouse skeletal muscle transcriptome

Physical inactivity and over-nutrition are key risk factors for metabolic diseases, with impaired skeletal muscle gene transcription and metabolic function proposed as key etiological factors. Here, we have used RNA-seq to assessed the skeletal muscle transcriptome from mice fed a control or high fat diet (HFD), both pre- and 3h post-exercise. HFD up-regulated genes involved in lipid catabolism in skeletal muscle (quadriceps), while decreasing 241 exercise-responsive genes related to skeletal muscle plasticity. Collectively, this experimental approach provides a suitable resource to study transcriptional and metabolic networks in skeletal muscle in the context of health and disease. Skeletal muscle (quadriceps) mRNA from wild type mice (C57BL/6NTac) fed a control (CON) or high fat diet (HFD) under basal pre-exercise condition (CON-pre & HFD-pre) and 3h post-exercise (CON-post & HFD-post). Each experimental group comprised 4 biological replicates (total of 16 samples), with RNA-seq performed with HiSeq2500 (Illumina).