Effects of Atherogenic Diet and Atorvastatin Treatment on Gene Expression Profiles in the C57BL/6J Mouse Liver

This study investigated the early and long-term effects of atherogenic diet on hepatic gene expression, and the restorative effects of atorvastatin in treating hypercholesterolemia. Two groups of female C57BL/6J mice were fed standard chow or atherogenic diet for 1-week early phase study and two other groups for 10 weeks. The fifth group had daily 10 mg/kg atorvastatin injections for 3 weeks from week 8 of the atherogenic diet. Gene expression profiling was carried out with Affymetrix GeneChips. One-week atherogenic diet elevated 38 and inhibited 127 gene expressions, while 10-week atherogenic diet elevated 165 and inhibited 281 genes by more than twofold. Atorvastatin could restore 78.2% and 68%, respectively, of the genes to normal levels. Genes in the Insig (insulin-induced gene)-SREBP (sterol regulatory element binding proteins) pathway were mostly inhibited by atherogenic diet at week 1 but elevated at week 10. Of these, 65.2% were restored by atorvastatin. In conclusion, lipid homeostatic mechanism coped well with short-term atherogenic diet. However, when such a diet was prolonged, the mechanism was no longer effective but entered into a pathological state in which lipogenic genes, especially those in the Insig-SREBP pathway, were upregulated. Atorvastatin could restore changes in the Insig-SREBP pathway that were induced by the atherogenic diet.