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© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are one of the most widely used animal models for the study of human lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis because they are more sensitive to a cholesterol diet than other experimental animals such as rodents. Currently, two hypercholesterolemic rabbit models are frequently used for atherosclerosis studies. One is a cholesterol-fed wild-type rabbit and the other is the Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic (WHHL) rabbit, which is genetically deficient in low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor function. Wild-type rabbits can be easily induced to develop severe hypercholesterolemia with a cholesterol-rich diet due to the marked increase in hepatically and intestinally derived remnant lipoproteins, called β-very low density lipoproteins (VLDL), which are rich in cholesteryl esters. WHHL rabbits are characterized by elevated plasma LDL levels on a standard chow diet, which resembles human familial hypercholesterolemia. Therefore, both rabbit models develop aortic and coronary atherosclerosis, but the elevated plasma cholesterol levels are caused by completely different mechanisms. In addition, cholesterol-fed rabbits but not WHHL rabbits exhibit different degrees of hepatosteatosis. Recently, we along with others have shown that there are many differentially expressed genes in the atherosclerotic lesions and livers of cholesterol-fed rabbits that are either significantly up- or down-regulated, compared with those in normal rabbits, including genes involved in the regulation of inflammation and lipid metabolism. Therefore, dietary cholesterol plays an important role not only in hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis but also in hepatosteatosis. In this review, we make an overview of the recent progress in genomic and transcriptomic analyses of hypercholesterolemic rabbits. These transcriptomic profiling data should provide novel insight into the relationship between hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis or hepatic dysfunction caused by dietary cholesterol.

Details

Title
Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Hypercholesterolemic Rabbits: Progress and Perspectives
Author
Fan, Jianglin 1 ; Chen, Yajie 2 ; Haizhao Yan 2 ; Liu, Baoning 3 ; Wang, Yanli 4 ; Zhang, Jifeng 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chen, Y Eugene 5 ; Liu, Enqi 3 ; Liang, Jingyan 6 

 Department of Molecular Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi 409-3898, Japan; Department of Pathology, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, China 
 Department of Molecular Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi 409-3898, Japan 
 Research Institute of Atherosclerotic Disease and Laboratory Animal Center, School of Medicine, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China 
 Department of Pathology, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, China 
 Center for Advanced Models for Translational Sciences and Therapeutics, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA 
 Institute of Translational Medicine, Medical College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine for Prevention and Treatment of Senile Diseases, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001, China; Jiangsu Co-Innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Disease and Zoonoses, Yangzhou 225001, China 
First page
3512
Publication year
2018
Publication date
2018
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
16616596
e-ISSN
14220067
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2582831433
Copyright
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.