To clarify the role of cytochrome P450 in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by RNA-Seq and bioinformatics analysis.

A total of 20 male C57BL/6 mice were used. Ten mice were fed with high-fat diet (D12492, 60% kcal fat) for 16 weeks to establish a mouse model of NAFLD, and the other 10 mice were fed with low-fat diet (D12450B, 10% kcal fat) as control group. At the end of the experiment, the body weight, liver weight, and hepatic triglyceride (TG) content were measured. Meanwhile, HE staining and RNA-Seq analysis were performed for the liver tissues. The differentially expressed genes were screened out and subjected to bioinformatics analysis, including KEGG and GO BP enrichment analyses and interaction network analysis. Comparison of means between the two groups was made using t-test.

Compared with the control group, the mice in the model group were obviously obese, with significantly increased body weight (41.41 ± 6.01 g vs 28.78 ± 1.79 g, t = 6.04, P < 0.01) and liver weight (1.38 ± 0.30 g vs 1.08 ± 0.10 g, t = 2.89, P < 0.01). The mice in the model group showed obvious steatosis, accompanied by a small amount of inflammatory cell infiltration, but with no obvious fibrosis, according to the results of HE staining. In addition, the hepatic TG content in the model group was significantly increased compared with that in the control group (0.64 ± 0.01 mg/mg vs 0.29 ± 0.06 mg/mg, t = 10.11, P = 0.04). Compared with the control group, a total of 367 differentially expressed genes, including 211 down-regulated and 156 up-regulated ones, were identified in the model group according to the RNA-seq results. Meanwhile, 19 CYP450 subtypes, accounting for 5% of the differentially expressed genes, were identified, and CYP2E1, CYP2C70, CYP3A11, CYP3A25, CYP2D26, CYP4A10, CYP17A1, CYP2B10, and CYP2C38 were involved in oxidative stress, steroid hormone metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, arachidonic acid metabolism, and the PPAR signaling pathway. An interaction network was constructed with 30 nodes, and CYP2E1 and CYP2C70 were identified as key nodes. RT-PCR validation results showed that the expression changes of CYP450 subtypes and lipid metabolism-related genes were consistent with the findings of sequencing.

The CYP450 family plays a vital role in the pathogenesis of fatty liver by regulating lipid metabolism-related pathways, including oxidative stress, arachidonic acid metabolism, steroid hormone metabolism , and fatty acid metabolism.

Fatty liver, alcoholic; Cytochrome P450; RNA-Seq