Susceptibility and Transcriptional Characteristics of C57BL/6 and ICR Mouse Strains in CDAHFD-Induced NASH Models

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease worldwide. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a severe form of NAFLD, is not fully elucidated. Therefore, preclinical mouse models are urgently needed as crucial tools to better understand the pathogenesis of NASH. The choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined, high-fat diet (CDAHFD) is a widely used diet-induced model for NASH and subsequent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in lean mice. However, literature on the response of different mouse strains to CDAHFD remains limited. In this study, we explored CDAHFD treatments for both C57BL/6 and ICR mouse strains in an effort to demonstrate the differences in their susceptibility to develop a NASH-like phenotype and further reveal the impact of genetic background on CDAHFD models.