Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 5 September 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201809.0082.v1 1 Article 2 Transcriptomics as precision medicine to classify in 3 vivo models of dietary-induced atherosclerosis at 4 cellular and molecular levels 5 Alexei Evsikov 1,2, Caralina Marín de Evsikova 1,2* 6 1 Epigenetics & Functional Genomics Laboratory, Department of Molecular Medicine, Morsani College of 7 Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, 33612, USA; 8 2 Department of Research and Development, Bay Pines Veteran Administration Healthcare System, Bay 9 Pines, FL 33744, USA 10 11 * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-813-974-2248 12 13 Abstract: The central promise of personalized medicine is individualized treatments that target 14 molecular mechanisms underlying the physiological changes and symptoms arising from disease. 15 We demonstrate a bioinformatics analysis pipeline as a proof-of-principle to test the feasibility and 16 practicality of comparative transcriptomics to classify two of the most popular in vivo diet-induced 17 models of coronary atherosclerosis, apolipoprotein E null mice and New Zealand White rabbits. 18 Transcriptomics analyses indicate the two models extensively share dysregulated genes albeit with 19 some unique pathways. For instance, while both models have alterations in the mitochondrion, the 20 biochemical pathway analysis revealed, Complex IV in the electron transfer chain is higher in mice, 21 whereas the rest of the electron transfer chain components are higher in the rabbits. Several fatty 22 acids anabolic pathways are expressed higher in mice, whereas fatty acids and lipids degradation 23 pathways are higher in rabbits.