Stress responsive gene FKBP5 mediates alcohol-induced liver injury through hippo pathway and CXCL1 signaling

To better our understanding and obtain a mechanistic insight on the role of FKBP5 on alcohol-induced liver injury, we performed RNA-seq analysis and compared the alterations in gene expression from WT and Fkbp5-/- mice on ethanol and pair-fed diet. Overall design: WT and Fkbp5-/- mice were subjected to NIAAA-Etoh-binge model. In brief, they were acclimatized for approximately 1 week before experiments, then were placed on either control (F1259SP) or ethanol containing diet (F1258SP) obtained from Bio-Serv (Flemington, NJ). Ethanol in the diet was incremented by 1% daily (vol/vol) until it reached 5% on day 5 when its concentration was kept constant for the subsequent 10 days. On the 11th day, the ethanol-fed mice received a single dose of ethanol (5 g/kg body weight, approximately 20% ethanol) via oral gavage in the early morning, while mice fed with control diet were gavaged with maltose. All mice were then anesthetized by isoflurane after 9 h of gavage, blood and liver tissue were immediately collected and snap-frozen for further experiments.