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Abstract
Flavonoids and particularly anthocyanins have been shown to reduce inflammatory markers in both humans and animals, and blueberries are rich in anthocyanins (1-3). However, the mechanisms and other possible effects are still largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between anthocyanin-rich diets and liver protein expression. In a previous study rats were fed diets with 10% whole blueberries, 10% carbohydrate-matched blueberry polyphenol extract, 1% blueberry flavonoid extract, 0.2% blueberry flavonoid extract, a carbohydrate-matched control, or AIN-93 rodent diet for three weeks (4). For this secondary analysis two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE; isoelectric focusing and SDS-PAGE) was used to separate out the proteins from the liver samples. Spots with a normalized volume difference greater than or equal to 1.5 fold (a 50% increase or decrease) were considered significant. In the water-soluble protein fraction no significant spots were detected. In the fat-soluble fraction three spots were detected and identified as urate oxidase.