Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (Pbmc) As A Source To Detect Markers Of Intake Of Diets With Unbalanced Proportion Of Macronutrients

Background and objectives: Unbalanced proportion in diet macronutrients is associated to alterations in body weight and/or metabolic parameters, and can be related to different pathologies. In order to find markers of intake of unbalance diets we analysed gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). PBMC constitute an easy obtainable biological material which use for nutrition studies is increasing as they can reproduce gene expression of other internal tissues and reflect different pathological status. Methods: Wistar rats were fed for 4 months with a control (70% Kcal from carbohydrates), a high-fat (HF; 60% Kcal from fats) or a high-protein (HP; 45% Kcal from proteins) diet in isocaloric amounts (pair-feeding). PBMC were obtained and gene expression studied by microarray analysis. Results: Our microarray data showed that 113 and 323 genes of a total of 21,530 probes changed as a result of the intake of a HF and a HP diet, respectively (Student’s t test, p