Epididymal adipose tissue gene expression in wildtype mice and mice with inactivated mesoderm specific transcript

The goal of this study is to compare transcriptome profiles of epididymal adipose tissue from wildtype mice and mice with a targeted inactivation of mesoderm specific transcript (Mest) fed a high fat diet from 8 to 16 weeks of age to gain insight for MEST function. Gene expression profiling resulted in relatively few changes (~36 targets; FDR padj<0.1) in gene expression in epididymal WAT from wildtype mice and mice with inactivated paternal allele for Mest. A less stringent analyses of the dataset (P ≤ 0.05; with mean of ≥ 50 sequence tags for at least one group) identified 395 genes more highly expressed in epididymal adipose tissue of wildtype mice and 301 genes more highly expressed in mice with a paternal inactivation of Mest. Gene pathway analyses of differentially expressed genes showed decreased expressed of genes associated with immune response and inflammation in high fat diet-fed mice with inactivated Mest compared with wildtype mice. Transcritome analyses supported phenotypic measurements which indicated improved glucose homeostasis in mice with inactivated Mest. Epididymal white adipose tissue RNA was purified from wildtype mice (n=6) and mice with Mest inactivated on the paternal allele (N=5) that were fed a high fat diet (D12231; Research Diets) ad libitum from 8 to 16 weeks of age. Quality and quantity of RNAs were confirmed using an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer.