Fibroblast growth factor 21 reflects liver fat accumulation and dysregulation of signalling pathways in the liver of C57BL/6J mice

Rusli, Fenni, Deelen, Joris, Andriyani, Evi, Boekschoten, Mark V., Lute, Carolien, van den Akker, Erik B., Muller, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5930-9905, Beekman, Marian and Steegenga, Wilma T. (2016) Fibroblast growth factor 21 reflects liver fat accumulation and dysregulation of signalling pathways in the liver of C57BL/6J mice. Scientific Reports, 6. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (Fgf21) has emerged as a potential plasma marker to diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). To study the molecular processes underlying the association of plasma Fgf21 with NAFLD, we explored the liver transcriptome data of a mild NAFLD model of aging C57BL/6J mice at 12, 24, and 28 months of age. The plasma Fgf21 level significantly correlated with intrahepatic triglyceride content. At the molecular level, elevated plasma Fgf21 levels were associated with dysregulated metabolic and cancerrelated pathways. The up-regulated Fgf21 levels in NAFLD were implied to be a protective response against the NAFLD-induced adverse effects, e.g. lipotoxicity, oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress. An in vivo PPARα challenge demonstrated the dysregulation of PPARα signalling in the presence of NAFLD, which resulted in a stochastically increasing hepatic expression of Fgf21. Notably, elevated plasma Fgf21 was associated with declining expression of Klb, Fgf21’s crucial co-receptor, which suggests a resistance to Fgf21. Therefore, although liver fat accumulation is a benign stage of NAFLD, the elevated plasma Fgf21 likely indicated vulnerability to metabolic stressors that may contribute towards progression to end-stage NAFLD. In conclusion, plasma levels of Fgf21 reflect liver fat accumulation and dysregulation of metabolic pathways in the liver.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Nutrition and Preventive Medicine
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Gastroenterology and Gut Biology
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2016 00:01
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 01:19
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59772
DOI: 10.1038/srep30484

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