Transcriptomic landscape and metabolic phenotypization of Polydactylous rat with metabolic syndrome after high fat diet challenge

Metabolic syndrome, with its ever-rising incidence, is an important cause of worldwide morbidity and mortality. MetS is diagnosed if three or more of the following criteria are met: obesity, high serum triglycerides, low HDL-cholesterol, high blood pressure and high serum glucose. Metabolic syndrome has a complex pathogenesis which includes on one hand sedentary lifestyle and high caloric intake, on the other hand there is clear genetic predisposition with heritability in the range of 0.25-0.8. Polydactylous rat (PD hereafter) is a rodent model of metabolic syndrome manifesting dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and obesity without hypertension. To unravel the genetic and pathophysiologic background of this phenotype we compared liver transcriptomes as well as morphometric and metabolic parameters (lipidemic profiles and serum markers) among PD, Spontaneously hypertensive rat and Brown Norway rat lines after high fat diet challenge. We used microarray aproach to unravel gene expression differences between SHR, PD and BN responsible for the different phenotypes in our rat strains. Adult male rats of BN, SHR and PD strain were used. Until the age of 6 months, they were fed a standard chow diet ad libitum. Then, after a one-night fasting period, we recorded a body