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Microarray analysis of mRNA expression profiles in liver of ob/ob mice with real-time atmospheric PM2.5 exposure

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Abstract

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated the association between exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and the onset of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the potential biological mechanism is largely unknown. Our study was aimed to explore the impact of PM2.5 on the transcriptome level in the liver of ob/ob mice by atmosphere PM2.5 whole-body dynamic exposure system, and meanwhile preliminarily investigated the effects of metformin intervention in this process. More than three thousand differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was screened out by microarray analysis (p < 0.05, |FC|> 1.5). KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed that these DEGs were mainly enriched in cancers, infectious diseases, and signal transduction, and the most significant pathways were thyroid hormone signaling pathway, chronic myeloid leukemia and metabolic pathways. Then, 12 hub genes were gained through weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) and verified by qRT-PCR. The expression of 5 genes in darkslateblue module (cd53, fcer1g, cd68, ctss, laptm5) increased after PM2.5 exposure and decreased after metformin intervention. They were related to insulin resistance, glucose and lipid metabolism and other liver metabolism, and also neurodegenerative diseases. This study provided valuable clues and possible protective measures to the liver damage in ob/ob mice caused by PM2.5 exposure, and further research is needed to explore the related mechanism in detail.

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Data availability

All microarray data is MIAME compliant and the raw data has been deposited in NCBIs Gene Expression Omnibus (NCBIs GEO ID: GSE186900, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE186900).

Abbreviations

KEGG:

Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes

GO:

Gene Onotology

STC-GO:

Series test of cluster of gene ontology

DEGs:

Differentially expressed genes

WGCNA:

Weighted correlation network analysis

qRT-PCR:

Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91943301, 92043301, 81602876). The authors would like to thank Weiping Tang of Cnkingbio biotechnology Co. Ltd. for bioinformatics assistance.

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Author notes

  1. Lisen Lin and Li Tian contributed equally to the work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Toxicology and Sanitary Chemistry, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100069, People’s Republic of China

    Lisen Lin, Li Tian, Tianyu Li, Mengqi Sun, Junchao Duan, Yang Yu & Zhiwei Sun

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100069, People’s Republic of China

    Lisen Lin, Li Tian, Tianyu Li, Mengqi Sun, Junchao Duan, Yang Yu & Zhiwei Sun

Authors
  1. Lisen Lin
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  2. Li Tian
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  3. Tianyu Li
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Contributions

LL: writing—first draft, software, visualization, and investigation. LT: writing—first draft, conceptualization, and methodology. TL: visualization and investigation. MS: data curation and investigation. JD: investigation and writing—reviewing and editing. YY: supervision, writing—reviewing and editing. ZS: writing—reviewing and editing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yang Yu or Zhiwei Sun.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This work has received approval for research ethics from the Animal Care and Use Committee of Capital Medical University, which ethical approval number is AEEI-2019–161.

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All listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Ludek Blaha

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Highlights

1. Real time exposure of PM2.5 disturbs the transcriptome level in ob/ob mice liver.

2. PM2.5 affects insulin resistance, glucose, and lipid metabolism in obese fatty liver.

3. Metformin could protect the PM2.5-induced metabolic disturbance in obese fatty liver.

4. WGCNA reveals 12 hub genes as potential biomarkers in PM2.5-induced hepatic injury.

Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file1 (PDF 422 KB)

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Lin, L., Tian, L., Li, T. et al. Microarray analysis of mRNA expression profiles in liver of ob/ob mice with real-time atmospheric PM2.5 exposure. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 76816–76832 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21088-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21088-y

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