Gene Expression Analyses of Ketogenic Diet

Abstract

Ketogenic diet (KD) is used to loose weight and in the treatment of epilepsy due to its anticonvulsant properties. Evidence demonstrates that this diet can assistant to diminish inflammation and reduce mortality, even though the genetic and molecular mechanisms are not yet well understood. This article investigated the gene expression under KD searching for differentially expressed genes and biological networks. Three publically available microarray datasets of mouse liver have been analysed and reported differentially expressed genes and Gene Ontology categories that are statistically overrepresented. Differentially expressed genes were filtered for adjusted p-value 0.05. The intersection between the three datasets revealed only 2 genes. To identify robust response (2 out of 3 datasets), the union of the intersection of the differentially expressed genes was calculated and revealed 33 genes, which were used to evaluate the Gene Ontology categories overrepresentation and Functional Profiling using gProfiler with KEGG Orthology. According to the results found, a KD has a fundamental role in the release of ketone bodies, mediated by PPAR α, influencing metabolism process.