All studies were conducted in adult drug-naïve C57BL/6J (B6) male mice that were purchased at 8 weeks of age from Jackson Laboratories (Bar Harbor, ME). We chose this strain because of their propensity for voluntary ethanol consumption 6. Seventy-two mice between 8 and 12 weeks old were used: 32 for the ethanol experiment in which mice received ethanol and PPAR agonists or saline (4 groups with 8 mice each) and 40 for the microarray experiment in which mice received PPAR agonists or saline only (4 groups with 10 mice each). Mice were housed in the Animal Resources Center at The University of Texas at Austin with 12-h light/dark cycles (lights on at 10:00 AM) and had ad libitum access to rodent chow (Prolab RMH 180 5LL2 chow, TestDiet, Richmond, IN) and water. All efforts were made to minimize animal suffering, to reduce the number of animals used, and to utilize alternatives to in vivo techniques, if available. All experiments were approved by The University of Texas at Austin Institute for Animal Care and Use Committee and were conducted in accordance with NIH guidelines with regard to the use of animals in research.
