How dietary arachidonic- and docosahexaenoic- acid rich oils differentially affect the murine hepatic transcriptome.

Introduction Herein, we expand our previous work on the effects of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) on the murine hepatic transcriptome using novel statistical and bioinformatic approaches for evaluating microarray data. The analyses focuses on key differences in the transcriptomic response that will influence metabolism following consumption of FUNG (rich in 20:4n6), FISH (rich in 20:5n3, 22:5n3, and 22:6n3) and COMB, the combination of the two.Results Using a variance-stabilized F-statistic, 371 probe sets (out of 13 K probe sets in the Affymetrix Mu11K chip set) were changed by dietary treatment (P Conclusion Distinct transcriptomic, signaling cascades, and predicted affects on murine liver metabolism have been elucidated for 20:4n6-rich dietary oils, 22:6n3-rich oils, and a surprisingly distinct set of genes were affected by the combination of the two. Our results emphasize that the balance of dietary n6 and n3 LC-PUFA provided for infants and in nutritional and neutraceutical applications could have profoundly different affects on metabolism and cell signaling, beyond that previously recognized.