Hepatic transcriptome analysis of PRDX1fl/fl and Alb-Cre;PRDX1fl/fl mice on MCD

The etiology of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has been complicated. An increasing body of literature has indicated that hepatic oxidative stress exerts a causal role in driving NASH. Nevertheless, how the anti-oxidant defense system guards against oxidative stress and NASH remains unclear. In this study, we sought to investigate how the peroxidase peroxiredoxin 1 protects against NASH. To this end, we fed WT and hepatic PRDX1 knockout (Alb-Cre;Prdx1fl/fl) a methionine and choline deficient diet (MCD) for 5 weeks and collected liver samples for RNA sequencing analysis. As revealed by gene-set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, there was an enrichment of genes involved in JAK-STAT signaling. Further, we observed that the expression of many genes involved in JAK-STAT signaling such as Pdgfb and Pdgfra was significantly increased in Alb-Cre;Prdx1fl/fl mice. Collectively, these results suggest that increased JAK-STAT signaling accounts for the deteriorated NASH phenotypes in Alb-Cre;Prdx1fl/fl mice. Overall design: We fed 8-week-old male mice a MCD for 5 weeks and collected their liver samples for RNA sequencing. 3 mice per genotype (PRDX1fl/fl or Alb-Cre;PRDX1fl/fl) were used.