High-Fat Diet Induced Metabolic Alterations

Figure 1 shows the experimental study design. We randomly selected 18 mice into three groups: a control group (C group, n = 6), a high-fat model group (M group, n = 6) and a Betaine treated group (B group, n = 6). The mice in the C group were fed with a standard diet (10% kcal fat). The M and B groups were fed a high-fat diet (45% kcal fat) for 17 weeks (10 (link), 27 (link), 28 (link)). Betaine was dissolved in water at a concentration of 2% w/v (29 (link)). Betaine was purchased from Beijing Solarbio Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China. At the end of the 25th week, the mice were anesthetized for liver collection. The liver samples were frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at −80°C until analysis. Besides, two mice closest to the average body weight were selected for high-throughput sequencing in group M and group B, respectively.