Project description:Proteomic analysis was performed on the proximal tibia head from healhty and BCO-affected broiler (meat-type) chickens using Bruker Daltonics amaZon series Mass Spectrometer. This analysis was undertaken to identify key protein signature involved in BCO, a common cause of lameness.
Project description:As an essential micronutrient for animals, vitamin E plays crucial physiological roles in reproduction, antioxidant and immune functions, and lipid metabolism. The objective of this study was to reveal molecular mechanism of vitamin E on intramuscular fat (IMF) deposition through transcriptome sequencing of pectoral muscle in broiler chickens. A total of 240 one-day-old health female chicks were randomly allocated into five dietary treatments with each treatment six replicates. The birds were fed basal diet supplemented with 0 and 100 IU/kg vitamin E in the form of DL-α-tocopheryl acetate, respectively. The body weight, carcass performance and IMF content were measured. Transcriptome profile of pectoral muscle in 35-day-old chickens were sequencing from the control and 100 IU/kg vitamin E treatment. Functional enrichment analyzes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) based on Gene ontology (GO), KEGG pathway and bio function, and network were performed. Results shown that IMF content of broiler chickens were significantly increased at 12.89% (P < 0.05) between 100 IU/kg vitamin E treatment and control. Transcriptome sequencing results for pectoralis major muscle of 100 IU vitamin E-supplemented and the control groups identified 57 up-regulated and 102 down-regulated DEGs. These DEGs were significantly enriched (FDR corrected P-value < 0.05) in 13 of 236 GO terms involved in muscle development- and lipid metabolism. Pathway functional enrichment analysis revealed that the DEGs were significantly enriched in three signalling pathways (FDR corrected P-value < 0.05). Two of them, MAPK signaling pathway and FoxO signaling pathway, play key roles in muscular and lipid metabolism. It is worth mentioning that 46 DEGs were significantly enriched in 28 skeletal and muscular system development and function categories and 31 DEGs were significantly enriched in 17 lipid metabolism function categories. Moreover, three lipid metabolism and muscular development-related networks of DEGs were also identified. These DEGEs, pathways, function categories and networks identified in this study provide us new insights for the vitamin E regulation of the IMF deposition in broiler chickens.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of male broiler chickens exposed to APEC O1. Comparisons were made between Day 1 and Day 5 of all treatment groups, between differences in pathology and effect of vaccine on spleen gene expression. The goal was to determine expression differences that could convey genetic resistance to APEC O1.
Project description:The process of commercial catching, transport and slaughter (CTS) is known to be an acute stressful event in broiler chickens. Corticosteroid concentrations increase, impacting measures of IGF-1, growth hormone and metabolites of the immune system from blood plasma samples. We used ARK-Genomics chicken 20K oligo array, a two channel DNA microarray, to investigate the significantly differentially expressed genes in the livers of chickens during CTS.
Project description:Subclinical necrotic enteritis (SNE) is one of the serious threats to the poultry industry. Probiotics have been proven to exert the beneficial effects in controlling SNE. However, the exact mechanisms of probiotics have not been fully elucidated, and few researchs have focused on their impact on miRNAs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the miRNA expression profles in the ileum of broiler chickens during probiotic supplement treatment for SNE. 180 newly hatched male chicks were randomly allocated in three groups, including negative control group(NC), SNE infection group(PC) and Bacillus licheniformis H2 pre-treatment group (BL). Illumina high-throughput sequencing was conducted to identify the miRNA expression of three groups. The results showed that 628 miRNAs, including 582 known miRNAs and 46 novel miRNAs, were detected in libraries. The target genes of 57 significantly differentially expressed miRNAs were predicted and annotated, which were found to partly enrich in pathways related to immunity and inflammation such as tumor necrosis factor receptor binding, immune response-regulating signaling pathway, activation of NF-kappaB-inducing kinase activity, interleukin-15 production, Toll-like receptor 2 signaling pathway and MAP kinase tyrosine/serine/threonine phosphatase activity. Our results provided comprehensive miRNA expression profles of these three different treatment groups. And these findings suggested that H2 could exert beneficial effects in controlling SNE may through immune and inflammatory response associated to altered miRNA expression.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of male broiler chickens exposed to APEC O1. Comparisons were made between Day 1 and Day 5 of all treatment groups, between differences in pathology and effect of vaccine on spleen gene expression. The goal was to determine expression differences that could convey genetic resistance to APEC O1. Chickens were either challenged or non-challenged with APEC, vaccinated or non-vaccinated, with spleens harvested 1 or 5 days post challenge. The non-vaccinated, challenged group was further subdivided into mild and severe pathologay based on internal lesion scores. This created 10 groups, done in 4 replicates. The non-vaccinated, non-challenged, day 1 group was used as the reference for all other samples.