ABSTRACT: To elucidate the effect of the polyphenols contained in alcoholic beverages on the metabolic stress induced by ethanol consumption, four groups of mice were fed for five weeks on Lieber's diet with or without ethanol, with ethanol plus ellagic acid, and with ethanol plus trans-resveratrol. Alcoholic fatty liver was observed in the group fed the ethanol diet but not in those fed the ethanol plus polyphenol diets. Liver transcriptome analysis revealed that the addition of the polyphenols suppressed the expression of the genes related to cell stress that were up-regulated by ethanol alone. Conversely, the polyphenols up-regulated the genes involved in bile acid synthesis, unsaturated fatty acid elongation, and tetrahydrofolate synthesis that were down-regulated by ethanol alone. Because parts of these genes were known to be regulated by the constitutive androstane receptor (CAR), we performed the same experiment in the CAR-deficient mice. As a result, fatty liver was observed not only in the ethanol group but also with the ethanol plus polyphenol groups. In addition, there was no segregation of the gene expression profiles among these groups. These results provide a molecular basis for the prevention of alcohol-induced stress by the polyphenols in alcoholic beverages. Five-week-old C3H/HeN female mice (CLEA, Japan) were acclimated to the maintenance condition (25°C, 8:00-20:00 day / 20:00-8:00 night cycle and 35~40 % humidity), fed a CE-2 diet (CLEA, Japan), and given water ad libitum for one week. Each group of mice (n=4 for wild type mice analysis and n=3 for CAR decficient mice analysis) was fed Lieber's isocaloric diet (Oriental yeast, Japan) containing water, containing ethanol, containing ethanol and ellagic acid (Fluka Biochemika, Switzerland), or containing ethanol and trans-resveratrol (Sigma, USA) (Supplementary Table 1) for one week at 10:00 ad libitum. Then, the mice were fed each diet at 12 g / day for four weeks (Supplementary Fig. 1A). The approximate intake of each polyphenol was 50 mg / kg body weight / day. At 10:00 of the final day of the experimental period, the animals were anesthetized by diethyl ether, sacrificed by cervial fracture, and the heart blood, and the liver were collected.