Figure 7. β-hydroxybutyrate acts as an endogenous inhibitor of HDAC3 to activate Fgf21 expression upon milk suckling.
(A–C) Ex vivo liver explants isolated from Ppara+/+ fetuses at E19.5 were used to study the effects of butyrate, β-hydroxybutyrate, and trichostatin in the presence or absence of WY-14643 (WY) on PPARα target genes. Left: mRNA expression of Fgf21 (A), Cyp4a14 (B), and Acox1 (C). Right: enrichment of the DNA fragment containing the FGF21 (A), Cyp4A14 (B), or ACOX1 (C) TSS after chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) using antibody against acetyl-histone 4 (AcH4). Data are presented as mean ± SEM; n = 6, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 vs. E19.5 samples without WY-14643 treatment (two-tailed Mann-Whitney test).