Experimental models of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats

Table 1 Characteristics of the most frequently used models of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats

Model	Obesity	Insulin resistance	Plasma cytokines/adipokines	Dyslipidaemia	Elevation of transaminases	Liver histology
						Steatosis	Inflammation	Hepatocyte ballooning	Fibrosis
Nutritional models
High-fat diets1	Yes[27,28,34,35]/no[29,36]/not describe[37,38]	Yes[27-29,34,35]/not described[36-38]	↑TNF-α[27,34]↓adiponectin[28,34,35]	Yes[27,28]/no[36]/not described[29,34,35,37,38]	Yes[27,28,34,38]/no[23,29,35,36]	Yes[23,27-29,34-38]/no[26]	Yes[27-29,34,37,38]/no[23,35,36]	Yes[34,37]/not described[23,27-29,35,36,38]	Yes[28,34]/no[23,35,36]/not described[27,37,38]
Atherogenic diet[41-43] (10% w/w lard, 2% w/w cholesterol)	Yes	Yes	↑TNF-α	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
High-fructose/sucrose diet[45-47]	No	Yes	↑IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6	Yes	No	Yes	Yes[46]/No[45]	Not described	Yes[46]/not described[45]
High-fructose, high-fat diet[48]	Yes	Yes	↑leptin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not described	Yes
Cafeteria diet[49]	Yes	Yes	Not described	Not described	Not described	Yes	Yes	Not described	Not described
Methionine- and choline-deficient diet [52,54]	Weight loss!	No	↑IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α	↓triglycerides, ↓cholesterol	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not described	Yes
Choline-deficient diet[52-53]	Yes	Yes	Not described	Yes	No or mild	Yes	Yes[52]	Not described	Mild after 90 d[53]
Genetic models
Zucker fatty rats[72-74,77,78]	Yes	Yes	↑adiponectin, leptin, TNF-α,	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not described	No
Zucker fatty rats + high-fat diet[78]	Yes	Yes	↑TNF-α	Not described	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Otsuka Long-Evans Tokushima fatty rats[98-100]	Yes	Yes	↑leptin, IL-6↓adiponectin	Yes	Yes (AST)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

¹Characteristics of high-fat models depend mainly on the rat strain, amount and composition of fat, duration of feeding, experimental design, etc. AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; IL: Interleukin; TNF: Tumour necrosis factor.