Establishment and metabonomics analysis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease model in golden hamster

Abstract The aim is to establish a model of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) caused by feeding with high-fat, high-fructose, and high-cholesterol diet (HFFCD) in golden hamsters, and to investigate the characteristics of the NAFLD model and metabolite changes of liver tissue. Golden hamsters were fed HFFCD or control diets for six weeks. Body weight, abdominal fat index, and liver index was assessed, serum parameters, hepatic histology, and liver metabolites were examined. The results showed that body weight, abdominal fat, and liver index of hamsters were significantly increased in the model group, the level of serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) were significantly increased in model group as well, and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) was significantly decreased. In addition, lipid deposition in liver tissue formed fat vacuoles of different sizes. Metabonomics analysis of the liver showed that the metabolic pathways of sphingolipid, glycerophospholipids, and arginine biosynthesis were disordered in the NAFLD model. The modeling method is simple, short time, and uniform. It can simulate the early fatty liver caused by common dietary factors, and provides an ideal model for the study of the initial pathogenesis and therapeutic drugs for NAFLD.