Impacts of Housing Density on Liver and Brain Health in a Mouse Model of MASLD
Filosa, Colby
Filosa, Colby
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Abstract
Metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) continues to rise in parallel with increasing consumption of the Western diet, which promotes hepatic lipid accumulation, oxidative stress, and binge drinking, which both promote disease. Although rodent models are widely used to study these effects, little research in females and on how environmental factors-partiularly housing conditions-impact susceptibility to Western diet-induced metabolic injury. This represents an important gap in understanding how the social environment shapes disease severity in females. We hypothesized female housing conditions alter the metabolic and oxidative responses to Western and dietary patterns and binge drinking, influencing lipid accumulation, oxidative stress, and tissue-level outcomes in the liver. Six-week-old C57BL/6 mice were assigned to either a standard control diet (AIN), Control/Binge, a Western diet, or Western/Binge paradigm, and housed either individually or in groups (n=3-4/cage). Body-weight change was tracked across the study. Liver and brain tissues were collected at the endpoint for triglyceride quantification, and TBARS and GSH assays to assess lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress. Single housed Western groups, regardless of binge drinking, had significantly higher amounts of liver triglycerides than cohoused. Similar results were shown for TBARS indicating higher levels of oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation. On the other hand, group housed females showed suppressed hepatic glutathione in the Western/Binge group compared to all others. These findings indicate that social housing impacts measures related to diet and alcohol, which highlights the importance of environmental context in experimental models of diet-induced liver pathology. More results are forthcoming on the impacts of these conditions in the brain.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Senior (Graduating in 2026)
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Poster
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Nutrition and Food Science
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College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
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Life Science