Regulatory diversity contributes to divergent transcriptional response to dietary changes in mammals

Regulatory innovation is central to the evolution of species. Different nutritional sources are one environmental pressure that can select for novel regulatory elements. Dietary composition changes, including exposure to “western” diets with excess fat content, can lead to transcriptional regulatory changes in the liver. In order to investigate how transcriptional regulatory changes in response to a high fat diet diverge across species, we profiled chromatin accessibility, histone modifications and the transcriptome in livers of rhesus macaques and mice fed high fat and normal diets. Overall design: To determine the impact changes in diet have on chromatin accessibility and transcription in adult rhesus macaques, we performed the ATAC-seq, ChIP-seq, and RNA-seq on rhesus macaque liver biopsies that were collected before and after the animals were fed a high fat diet for a 6 month period.