Project description:Domesticated animals share a unique set of morphological and behavioural traits, jointly referred to as the domesticated phenotype. These include modified growth, reproduction, metabolism, pubertal development and stress response. Striking similarities amongst a range of unrelated domesticated species suggest that similar regulatory mechanisms may underlie the domesticated phenotype. Several previous studies have focused on the brain to find mechanisms underlying domestication effects on the stress response, whereas the potential role of the pituitary gland as a target of domestication is highly overlooked. Here, we study gene expression in the pituitary gland of the domesticated White Leghorn chicken and its ancestor, the Red Junglefowl. We exposed chicken of both breeds to 15 minutes of restraint stress. We then culled the animals and dissected out the pituitary gland and snap froze them. RNA was later extracted from the pituitaries and gene expression was measured using Agilent microarray.
Project description:The pituitary gland is a neuroendocrine organ that is involved in several processes within the body such as metabolism, growth, immune function, and reproduction. Increased ambient temperatures are environmental stressor that leads to several welfare concerns in poultry production but also economic losses. Because of the involvement of the pituitary gland in several processes that are affected by heat stress, it is hypothesized this tissue's gene expression will be impacted by heat stress. The objectives of the project are to (a) identify genes that constitue the pituitary gland when compared to other collected chicken tissues (Insert tissues) and (b) identify genes that respond to heat stress via differential expression analysis to better understand the chicken's response to heat at the transcriptomic level.
Project description:Relative expression levels of mRNAs in chicken cecal epithelia experimentally infected with Eimeria tenella were measured at 4.5 days post-infection. Two weeks old chickens were uninfected (negative control) or were orally inoculated with sporulated oocysts of Eimeria tenella. Cecal epithelia samples were collected from >12 birds in infected or uninfected group at 4.5 d following infections, in which samples from 4 birds were pooled together to form a total 3 biological replicates in each group. Parasite merozoites were also collected from four infected chickens at 5 d after infections. Uninfected control samples, merozoites and infection group samples were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We used Affymetrix GeneChip chicken genome arrays to detail the chicken cecal epithelia gene expression in the control and E. tenella-infected birds.
Project description:The existence of conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) has not yet been demonstrated outside mammals. In this paper, we identified bona fide cDCs in chicken spleen. Comparative profiling of global and of immune response gene expression, morphology, and T cell activation properties show that cDCs and macrophages (MPs) exist as distinct mononuclear phagocytes in chicken, resembling their human and mouse cell counterparts. Using computational analysis, core gene expression signatures for cDCs, MPs, T and B cells across chicken, human and mouse were established, which will facilitate the identification of these subsets in other vertebrates. Overall this study, by extending the newly uncovered cDC and MP paradigm to chicken, suggests that the generation of these two phagocyte lineages occurred before the reptile to mammal and bird transition in evolution. It opens avenues for the design of new vaccines and neutraceuticals that are mandatory for the sustained supply of poultry products in the expanding human population.
Project description:We report the transcriptomes of 10 different chicken (Gallus gallus) cell/tissue types. The goal of this project was to determine similarities and differences between different cell/tissue types, with respect to protein coding genes, lncRNA, isoform counts, and differential gene expression. We provide raw data and bigWig files for UCSC visualization. The findings described here will be useful towards a complete annotation of chicken tissue and cellular transcriptomes.