Short-term high-fat meal intake alters the expression of circadian clock-, inflammation-, and oxidative stress-related genes in human skeletal muscle.

Dietary food, depending on timing, amount and composition can influence gene expression in various tissues. Here, we investigated the effect of high-fat meal diets of different compositions on the gene expression pattern of human skeletal muscle. Gene expression data of skeletal muscle samples from human volunteers prior and 4 h after the consumption of high lipid-containing meal consisting of either saturated-, monounsaturated- or polyunsaturated fatty acids were downloaded from the public repository. List of 843 differently expressed genes (DEGs) was generated. Functional analysis revealed that circadian rhythm-, inflammation- and oxidative stress-related genes are highly overrepresented among the DEGs. The magnitude of gene expression changes significantly increases with the saturation level of the dietary fatty acids and the majority of the DEGs are upregulated. We propose that, by altering circadian clock gene expression and inducing inflammation and oxidative stress, high lipid intake can contribute to muscle function decay in the long run.