Project description:Adding lysolecithin to feed has reportedly improved the performance of broiler chickens. Lysolecithin is generated by phospholipase catalyzed hydrolysis of lecithin. The enzymatic reaction converts phospholipids into lysophospholipids, with lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) the primary product. Here we compared supplementation with a commercial lysolecithin (Lysoforte(R) Kemin Industries, Inc., Des Moines, IA) with comparable levels of purified LPC for effects on broilers. Despite no differences in weight gain during the starter period, we discovered a significant increase in average villus length in the jejunum with lysolecithin, but not with LPC. High-throughput gene expression microarray analyses revealed many more genes were regulated in the epithelium of jejunum by lysolecithin compared to LPC. The most upregulated genes and pathways were for collagen, extracellular matrix and integrins. Staining sections of jejunum with Sirius Red confirmed the increased deposition of collagen fibrils in villi of broilers fed lysolecithin but not LPC. Thus, lysolecithin elicits gene expression in the intestinal epithelium leading to enhanced collagen deposition and villus length. LPC alone as a supplement does not mimic these responses. Feed supplementation with lysolecithin triggers changes in the intestinal epithelium with the potential to improve overall gut health and performance.
Project description:We recently performed global gene expression in the breast muscles of modern broiler and foundation line chickens. In this study, we have peformed miRNA expression analyses in the same tissues to identify muscle specific miRNAs that could be regulatory factors for muscle growth and feed efficiency in chickens.
Project description:To better understand the hepatic metabolic response to intermittent fasting in chickens, Red Junglefowl chickens were raised on ad libitum (AL) feed until 14 days of age and then kept on AL feeding, switched to chronic feed restriction (CR) to around 70% or switched to an intermittent fasting (IF) regimen consisting of two fed days (150% of age-matched weight-specific AL intake offered daily) followed by a non-fed day. AL and CR were culled at 36 days of age, and IF birds either at 40 days of age (second consecutive feeding day) or 41 days of age (fasting day).
Project description:Optimization of broiler chicken breast muscle protein accretion is key for the efficient production of poultry meat, whose demand is steadily increasing. In a context where antimicrobial growth promoters use is being restricted, it is important to find alternatives as well as to characterize the effect of immunological stress on broiler chicken growth. Despite of its importance, research on broiler chicken muscle protein dynamics has been mostly limited to the study of mixed protein turnover. The present study aims to characterize the effect of a bacterial challenge and the feed supplementation of a citrus and a cucumber extract on broiler chicken individual breast muscle proteins fractional synthesis rates (FSR) using a recently developed dynamic proteomics pipeline. 21 day-old broiler chickens were administered a single 2H2O dose before being culled at different timepoints. A total of 60 breast muscle protein extracts from five experimental groups (Unchallenged, Challenged, Control Diet, Diet 1 and Diet 2) were analyzed using a DDA proteomics approach. Proteomics data was filtered in order to reliably calculate multiple proteins FSR making use of a newly developed bioinformatics pipeline. Broiler breast muscle proteins FSR uniformly decreased following a bacterial challenge, this change was judged significant for 15 individual proteins, the two major functional clusters identified as well as for mixed breast muscle protein. Citrus or cucumber extract feed supplementation did not show any effect on the breast muscle protein FSR of immunologically challenged broilers. The present study has identified potential predictive markers of breast muscle growth and provided new information on broiler chicken breast muscle protein turnover which could be essential for improving the efficiency of broiler chicken meat production.
Project description:Domestic broiler chickens rapidly accumulate adipose tissue due to intensive genetic selection for rapid growth and are naturally hyperglycemic and insulin resistant, making them an attractive addition to the suite of rodent models used for studies of obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans. Furthermore, chicken adipose tissue is considered as poorly sensitive to insulin and lipolysis is under glucagon control. Excessive fat accumulation is also an economic and environmental concern for the broiler industry due to the loss of feed efficiency and excessive nitrogen wasting, as well as a negative trait for consumers who are increasingly conscious of dietary fat intake. Understanding the control of avian adipose tissue metabolism would both enhance the utility of chicken as a model organism for human obesity and insulin resistance and highlight new approaches to reduce fat deposition in commercial chickens. In the present study we simultaneously characterized the effects of a short term (5 hours) fast or neutralization of insulin action (5 hours) on adipose tissue of young (16-17 day-old), fed commercial broiler chickens.
Project description:Slow-growing Korat chicken (KR) is an alternative to broiler chickens that has been used as a national tool to support smallholder farmers due to a higher selling price of KR meat. However, the individual variability of feed efficiency (FE) within a KR stockbreeding results in a lack of competitiveness. Therefore, improvement of FE of KR is of major importance to improve the profitability of livestock production enterprises. Here, we selected two groups of KR with divergent feed conversion ratios (FCR). We performed RNA-sequencing in order to profile KR jejunal transcriptome and to identify the transcriptional variations and biological pathways implied in response to divergent FCR. The biological pathways involved were revealed by enrichment of the Gene Ontology (GO) terms, and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genome (KEGG) pathways. The results showed that main pathways involved in KR FCR divergence were related to immune response, glutathione metabolism, vitamin transport and metabolism, lipid metabolism, and maturation, development and growth. This is the first study to investigate the molecular genetic mechanisms affecting the FCR values in jejunum of slow-growing chicken. This study will be useful in the line-breeding programs for slow growing chickens to improve FE in the stockbreeding and its profitability.
Project description:RNA-Seq Analysis of Abdominal Fat Reveals Differences between Modern Commercial Broiler Chickens with High and Low Feed Efficiencies