Table 1.
Fat mixture and fatty acid composition (% of FAs) of the experimental lipid blends containing increasing levels of caprylic acid (C8:0).
Table 2.
Primers designed for quantitative RT-PCR analysis of rat genes.
Fig 1.
Effect of dietary tricaprylin level on C8:0 availability in the stomach tissue in the MF groups.
The stomach tissue was dissected and the fatty acids of the fundus and corpus were analyzed. The C8:0 available in the different parts of the stomach is expressed as mean ± SEM in % of FAs in the tissues. The effect of the diet and the localization in the stomach tissue was analyzed using two-way ANOVA: (i) effect of the diet on C8:0 availability, P<0.0001; (ii) effect of the part of the stomach tissue studied on C8:0 availability, P = 0.0092; (iii) interaction between the two factors, P = 0.0387.
Table 3.
Effect of dietary tricaprylin (0, 8, 21% of FAs) in the MF groups on the C8:0 availability in different tissues.
Fig 2.
Effect of dietary tricaprylin level on the plasma acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations, in the MF groups (fed state).
(a) Acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations after 3 weeks of diet. Kruskal-Wallis test (K-W): (i) acylated ghrelin, P = 0.44; (ii) unacylated ghrelin, P = 0.0018, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05, **P<0.01; (iii) total ghrelin, P = 0.5824. (b) Acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations after 5 weeks of diet. K-W test: (i) acylated ghrelin, P = 0.56; (ii) unacylated ghrelin, P = 0.029, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05; (iii) total ghrelin, P = 0.127. (c) Acylated/total ghrelin ratios after 3 weeks of diet. K-W test: P = 0.006, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05, **P<0.01. (d) Acylated/total ghrelin ratios after 5 weeks of diet. K-W test: P = 0.0103, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05.
Fig 3.
Effect of dietary tricaprylin level on the acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations, in the MF groups (fasted state).
(a) Acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations after 2 weeks of diet. Kruskal-Wallis test (K-W): (i) acylated ghrelin, P = 0.0837; (ii) unacylated ghrelin, P = 0.038, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05; (iii) total ghrelin, P = 0.2345. (b) Acylated and unacylated ghrelin concentrations after 4 weeks of diet. K-W test: (i) acylated ghrelin, P = 0.4585; (ii) unacylated ghrelin, P = 0.5643; (iii) total ghrelin, P = 0.65. (c) Acylated/total ghrelin ratios after 2 weeks of diet. K-W test: P = 0.0181, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05. (d) Acylated/total ghrelin ratios after 4 weeks of diet. K-W test: P = 0.3635.
Fig 4.
Effect of tricaprylin on total ghrelin expression in the MF groups.
(a) Preproghrelin mRNA level (in fold change of the control MF-0) in the stomach tissue. Kruskal-Wallis (K-W) test: P = 0.004, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05, **P<0.01. (b) Quantification of total ghrelin staining in the gastric mucosa of the corpus. K-W test: P = 0.017, Dunn’s post tests, **P<0.01. (c) Ghrelin staining in gastric mucosa of MF-0, MF-8 and MF-21 groups.
Fig 5.
Effect of tricaprylin on body weight gain and food intake in the MF groups.
(a) Body weight gain in gram. Two-way repeated measurement ANOVA: effect of the diet, P = 0.5275. (b) Final body weight in gram; Kruskal-Wallis (K-W) test: P = 0.9098. (c) Cumulative energy intakes in kcal. K-W test: P = 0.3393. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM.
Fig 6.
Effect of tricaprylin in the MF groups on adiposity.
(a) Frequency distribution of adipocyte diameter (μm). (b) Adipocyte diameter (μm), K-W test, **P<0.01, Dunn’s ***P<0.001. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM.
Fig 7.
Effect of C8:0 in the MF groups on liver IGF-1 expression.
IGF-1 mRNA level (in fold change). K-W test, P = 0.009, Dunn’s post tests, *P<0.05. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM.