Thesis subject

Real microarray dataset: Metabolic response of room temperature vs thermoneutrality

Usually, mice are housed at a (human) room temperature of around 22oC. However, the thermoneutral temperature of mice is estimated to be around 29oC. This thesis will be based on an actual microarray dataset, of mice that have been switched from 29oC to 22oC of housing temperature, for 5 days, leading to differences in body weight and adiposity between the groups. In this experiment, we performed a whole genome expression microarray; we found out that hundreds of genes are differently expressed in the white adipose tissue of these two experimental groups.

Aim: To analyse (part of) the microarray dataset, by choosing a few interesting/important genes from the dataset. Information about these genes will be found in literature, leading to an overview of the mechanism that is behind the change in these genes, caused by the temperature difference.