Linalool, an aromatic terpenoid, rewires transcriptome profile of lipid-loaded HepG2 cells

The microarray results showed that linalool sitimulation of lipid-loaded HepG2 cells rewired the hepatic transcriptome profile, with linalool being comparable to those of fenofibrate. Total of 8,988 genes that were commonly and significantly expressed in all experimental groups, including control hepatocytes, lipid-loaded hepatocytes, and lipid-loaded hepatocyted stimulated with linalool or fenofibrate, respectively, to compare the transcriptome profile of linalool (1mM) with those of hypotriglyceridemic drug, fenofibrate (100 μM). Lipid loading of hepatocytes notably changed hepatic transcriptome profile, where 77 % of the selected genes showed >20% changes in expression (fold change > 1.2 or fold change <0.8). However, linalool stimulation of lipid-loaded cells showed that 48 % of the selected genes had expression changes of >20%. Thus, 29 % of the selected genes became to show less than 20% changes in expression after linalool stimulation compared to the lipid-loaded condition. Fenofibrate showed 46 % of the selected gene expression changes of >20%. Thus, 31 % of the seleted genes fell into the <20% change category compared to the lipid-loaded condition after fenofibrate stimulation. Untreated control vs. lipid-loaded HepG2 cells (3 biological replicates), untreated control vs. lipid-loaded HepG2 cells treated with fenofibrate (3 biological replicates), untreated control vs. lipid-loaded HepG2 cells treated with linalool (2 biological replicates). One replicate per array