Chicken hepatic response to chronic heat stress using integrated transcriptome and metabolome analysis

Date
2017
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University of Delaware
Abstract
The liver plays a central role in metabolism and is important in maintaining homeostasis throughout the body. This makes it an important organ during times of heat, where the body is adjusting to hyperthermic stress. This study integrates transcriptomic and metabolomic data to understand how the chicken liver responds under chronic heat stress. Chickens from a rapidly growing broiler line were heat stressed for 8 hours per day for one week and liver samples were collected at 28 days post hatch. Transcriptome analysis reveals changes in genes responsible for cell cycle regulation, DNA replication, and DNA repair along with immune function. Integrating the metabolome and transcriptome data highlighted multiple pathways affected by heat stress including glucose, amino acid, and lipid metabolism along with glutathione production and beta-oxidation. Our results yield valuable insight into how a chicken responds to hyperthermia. This is important because it creates a base for understanding how the chicken responds to heat stress and opens the door for future studies on how to potentially supplement chickens to alleviate problems they have during heat stress as well as help producers by creating a better producing bird that is not as severely impacted by heat stress.
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