Résumé
The purpose of this study is to identify the hierarchy of importance amongst pathways involved in fatty acid (FA) metabolism and their regulators in the control of hepatic FA composition. A modeling approach was applied to experimental data obtained during fasting in PPAR_-knockout (KO) mice and wild-type mice. A step-by-step procedure was used in which a very simple model was completed by additional pathways until the model fitted correctly the measured quantities of FA in the liver. The resulting model included FA uptake by the liver, FA oxidation, elongation and elongation and desaturation of FA, which were found active in both genotypes during fasting.