Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 19, 2025
An Experimental Model of Diet-Induced Metabolic Syndrome in Rabbit: Methodological Considerations, Development, and Assessment
Published on: April 20, 2018
High fat diet altered cardiac metabolic gene profile in Psammomys obesus gerbils
Abdelhamid Sahraoui1,2,3, Céline Dewachter1,4, Grégory Vegh1
1Laboratory of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 808, Lennik Road, 1070, Brussels, Belgium.
Background:
In metabolic disorders, myocardial fatty infiltration is critically associated with lipotoxic cardiomyopathy.
Methods:
Twenty Psammomys obesus gerbils were randomly assigned to normal plant or high fat diet. Sixteen weeks later, myocardium was sampled for pathobiological evaluation.
Results:
A sixteen-week high fat diet resulted in myocardial structure disorganization, with collagen deposits, lipid accumulation, cardiomyocyte apoptosis and inflammatory cell infiltration. Myocardial expressions of glucose transporter GLUT1 and pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) inhibitor, PDH kinase (PDK)4 increased, while insulin-regulated GLUT4 expression remained unchanged. Myocardial expressions of molecules regulating fatty acid transport, CD36 and fatty acid binding protein (FABP)3, were increased, while expression of rate-controlling fatty acid β-oxidation, carnitine palmitoyl transferase (CPT)1B decreased. Myocardial expression of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), decreased, while expression of peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPAR)-α and -γ did not change.
Conclusion:
In high fat diet fed Psammomys obesus, an original experimental model of nutritionally induced metabolic syndrome mixing genetic predisposition and environment interactions, a short period of high fat feeding was sufficient to induce myocardial structural alterations, associated with altered myocardial metabolic gene expression in favor of lipid accumulation.
