Ketogenic diet administration to mice after a high-fat-diet regimen promotes weight loss, glycemic normalization and induces adaptations of ketogenic pathways in liver and kidney

Objective

The ketogenic diet (KD), characterized by very limited dietary carbohydrate intake and used as nutritional treatment for GLUT1-deficiency syndromes and pharmacologically refractory epilepsy, may promote weight loss and improve metabolic fitness, potentially alleviating the symptoms of osteoarthritis. Here, we have studied the effects of administration of a ketogenic diet in mice previously rendered obese by feeding a high fat diet (HFD) and submitted to surgical destabilization of the medial meniscus to mimic osteoarthritis.

Methods

6-weeks old mice were fed an HFD for 10 weeks and then switched to a chow diet (CD), KD or maintained on a HFD for 8 weeks. Glycemia, β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), body weight and fat mass were compared among groups. In liver and kidney, protein expression and histone post-translational modifications were assessed by Western blot, and gene expression by quantitative Real-Time PCR.

Results

After a 10 weeks HDF feeding, administration for 8 weeks of a KD or CD induced a comparable weight loss and decrease in fat mass, with better glycemic normalization in the KD group. Histone β-hydroxybutyrylation, but not histone acetylation, was increased in the liver and kidney of mice fed the KD and the rate-limiting ketogenic enzyme HMGCS2 was upregulated – at the gene and protein level – in liver and, to an even greater extent, in kidney. KD-induced HMGCS2 overexpression may be dependent on FGF21, whose gene expression was increased by KD in liver.

Conclusions

Over a period of 8 weeks, KD is more effective than a chow diet to induce metabolic normalization. Besides acting as a fuel molecule, BHB may exert its metabolic effects through modulation of the epigenome - via histone β-hydroxybutyrylation - and extensive transcriptional modulation in liver and kidney.