Project description:The lean and fat broilers were derived from the 21st generation of the Northeast Agricultural University broiler lines divergently selected for abdominal fat content (NEAUHLF). In brief, broilers in the two lines (lean line and fat line) of the NEAUHLF have the same Arbor Acres ancestry, but were divergently selected by the concentration of very low-density lipoprotein and abdominal fat percentage (AFP) at 7 weeks old. After 21 generations of selection, there is over a 10-fold difference in abdominal fat percentage between the two lines, representing a classical obese-lean-study model. At age of 7 weeks, ten male individuals of each line were selected randomly to investigate the interactions between gut microbiome, host gene expression and obesity.
Project description:The gut microbiota exerts profound influence on poultry immunity and metabolism through mechanisms that yet need to be elucidated. Here we used conventional and germ-free chickens to explore the influence of the gut microbiota on transcriptomic along the gut-lung axis in poultry. Our results demonstrated a differential regulation of genes associated with innate immunity and metabolism in the spleen of germ-free birds.
Project description:The gut microbiota exerts profound influence on poultry immunity and metabolism through mechanisms that yet need to be elucidated. Here we used conventional and germ-free chickens to explore the influence of the gut microbiota on transcriptomic along the gut-lung axis in poultry. Our results demonstrated a differential regulation of genes associated with innate immunity and metabolism in the lungs of germ-free birds.
Project description:The gut microbiota exerts profound influence on poultry immunity and metabolism through mechanisms that yet need to be elucidated. Here we used conventional and germ-free chickens to explore the influence of the gut microbiota on transcriptomic along the gut-lung axis in poultry. Our results demonstrated a differential regulation of genes associated with innate immunity and metabolism in the caeca of germ-free birds.
Project description:The gut of chicken is mostly colonised with Campylobacter jejuni and with 100 fold less C. coli. The competitive ability of C. coli OR12 over C. jejuni OR1 has been examined in experimental broiler chickens following the observation that C. coli replaced an established C. jejuni intestinal colonisation within commercial chicken flocks reared outdoors (El-Shibiny, A., Connerton, P.L., Connerton, I.F., 2005. Enumeration and diversity of campylobacters and bacteriophages isolated during the rearing cycles of free-range and organic chickens. Applied Environmental Microbiology. 71, 1259-1266).