Excess fat in the diet typically leads to weight gain and inappropriate deposition of lipid in organs such as liver and skeletal muscle. In a recent study we showed that compared to a number of other commonly used mouse strains, BALB/c mice displayed an unusual response to a high fat diet, selectively avoiding lipid accumulation in the liver. This project will investigate lipid metabolism in BALB/c mice to determine why they don’t develop a fatty liver when given excess fat in the diet.