For all groups, more genes were expressed in PFC than in liver, but liver showed both a larger number and percentage of significantly regulated (Differentially Expressed, DE) transcripts (Table 1). Total ethanol consumption paralleled gene regulation in that treatments (Chronic and CI) evoking greater ethanol consumption also yielded a larger number of regulated transcripts than the lower consumption test (DID), especially in the liver (Figure 1C). This likely reflects the increased metabolic load imposed on the liver with increasing amounts of ethanol. The LPS injections strongly perturbed the PFC transcriptome and LPS-treated animals exhibited almost twice as many DE genes as the Chronic and CI treatments (Table 1). In liver, the LPS and ethanol treatments generated comparable numbers of DE genes.
