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The Western diet regulates hippocampal microvascular gene expression: An integrated genomic analyses in female mice (animal study)
This 2019 study investigated the pathways by which the Western Diet (WD) regulates gene expression in hippocampal brain microvessels of female mice, since it is poorly understood how microvasular disease in the memory centre of the brain develops (while consumption of the WD is associated with cognitive impairment and hyperlipidaemia [high levels of fat in the blood], identified as a risk factor for dementia). Five-week-old female low-density lipoprotein receptor deficient (LDL-R-/-) and C57BL/6J wild type (WT) mice were fed a chow (Nestle dog food) or WD for 8 weeks, before having their metabolics for lipids, glucose, and insulin measured. Differential gene expression, gene networks and pathways, transcription factors, and non-protein coding RNAs were evaluated. The Western Diet resulted in differential expression of 2,412 genes, with most of them attributable to differential regulation of cell signaling proteins and their transcription factors, about 7% said to be differential expression of microRNAs (miRNAs), and a lesser proportion due to other protein coding RNAs (some of which not previously described as modified by the WD in females). Nuthikattu et al. (2019) found evidence for regular WD consumption resulting in integrated multilevel molecular regulation of the hippocampal microvasculature of female mice, and may have discovered one of the mechanisms underlying vascular dementia. [NPID: Western-style diet, WS diet, hippocampal volume, hippocampus, cognition, dementia, gene expression, vascular dementia]
Year: 2019
