BioProject

Beyond the DNA sequence difference between humans and closely related apes, there are large differences in the environments that these species experience. More...

Beyond the DNA sequence difference between humans and closely related apes, there are large differences in the environments that these species experience. One prominent example for this is diet. The human diet diverges from those of other primates in various aspects, such as having a high calorie and protein content, as well as being cooked. Here, we used a laboratory mouse model to identify gene expression differences related to dietary differences. Keywords: diet Overall design: We fed four groups of six genetically identical 8-week-old female NMR1 mice one of four diets ad libidum: (1) a diet consisting of vegetables, fruit and yogurt identical to the diet fed to chimpanzees in our ape facility ('Chimpanzee'); (2) a diet consisting exclusively of McDonalds. fast food ('FastFood'); (3) a diet consisting of cooked food eaten by our staff in the Institute cafeteria ('HumanCafe'); (4) the mouse pellet diet on which they were raised ('Pellet'). At the end of a 2-week period, mice were euthanized by cervical dislocation and both liver and brain (right cerebral hemisphere) tissue were dissected. RNA was extracted from the 24 liver and brain samples as per established lab protocols and processed in two batches (containing equal numbers of individuals from all groups). Less...