Thyroid transcriptome analysis reveals different adaptive responses to cold environmental conditions between two chicken breeds.

ABSTRACT: Selection for cold tolerance in chickens is important for improving production performance and animal welfare. The identification of chicken breeds with higher cold tolerance and production performance will help to target candidates for the selection. The thyroid gland plays important roles in thermal adaptation, and its function is influenced by breed differences and transcriptional plasticity, both of which remain largely unknown in the chicken thyroid transcriptome. In this study, we subjected Bashang Long-tail (BS) and Rhode Island Red (RIR) chickens to either cold or warm environments for 21 weeks and investigated egg production performance, body weight changes, serum thyroid hormone concentrations, and thyroid gland transcriptome profiles. RIR chickens had higher egg production than

SUBMITTER: Xie S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5761956 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature