The Relative Gene Expression of GAPDH in Mice Fed with a Short-Term High Fat Diet

Abstract

The important role of nutrition in health and disease prevention is well recognized. The glyceraldehyde-3- dehydrogenase phosphate gene (GAPDH) is considered as a housekeeping gene: it encodes a key enzyme of the glycolysis, and seems to affect the metabolism of fatty acids. The purpose of this work was to study the relative expression of the GAPDH gene in mice subjected to a short-term high fat diet. The expression of the GAPDH gene has been analyzed in the livers of C57BL / 6N mice: 5 control mice and 5 mice subjected to a short term high-fat diet. The quantification of the mRNA has been performed by a real-time PCR using specific primers designated and validated in silico. The data have been analyzed by the REST software. The results showed a significant down expression (p < 0.005) of the GAPDH gene in mice subjected to high-fat diet. This suggests that a lipid diet may have an effect on the expression of the GAPDH gene. Thus the use of GAPDH as a reference gene should be reconsidered notably in gene expression studies.