Screening of Genes Related to Glucose and Lipid Metabolism in Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease by Gene Microarray

We used gene expression microarray to explore the correlation between gene expression profiles and find out the target genes related to lipid and glucose metabolism in NAFLD. A rat model of NAFLD was established by feeding male rats with high-fat diet and Agilent DNA microarray was used to detect gene expression profiles of liver tissues. We explored differentially expressed genes and intersection of them by using Gene ontology (GO) and Pathway analyses. Then, target genes were verified by Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). There were 932 genes, including 783 up-regulated and 149 down-regulated, differed in expression compared to those of control rats. The up-regulated genes were involved in biosynthesis, cell development, cell differentiation and down-regulated genes mainly contributed to biological metabolic process and stress reaction. We identified genes involved in insulin signaling pathway, Notch signaling pathway, adipocytokin and linoleic acid metabolism to be closely related to liver fat content and insulin resistance. Among them, genes which supposed to connect glucose and lipid metabolism were screened (IGFBP7, Notch1, HMGCR and ACACB) and then validated by real-time PCR. These data provide innovative information on the whole genome expression profile due to high-fat diet feeding and bring important insights into the mechanism of NAFLD. Liver tissues from male rats were distributed into two experimental groups: normal control group (Zheng) and NAFLD tissue group (N), then Agilent DNA microarray was used to detect gene expression profiles of liver tissues