title: Identification of genes involved in regulatory mechanism of pigments in broiler chickens.
abstract: Chicken is an important model organism that unites the evolutionary gap between mammals and other vertebrates and provide major source of protein from meat and eggs for all over the world population. However, specific genes underlying the regulatory mechanism of broiler pigmentation have not yet been determined. In order to better understand the genes involved in the mechanism of pigmentation in the muscle tissues of broilers, the Affymetrix microarray hybridization experiment platform was used to identify gene expression profiles at 7 weeks of age. Broilers fed canthaxanthin, natural lutein, and orangeII pigments (100 mg/kg) were used to explore gene expression profiles). Our data showed that the 7th week of age was a very important phase with regard to gene expression profiles. We identified a number of differentially expressed genes; in canthaxanthin, natural lutein, and orangeII, there were 54 (32 upregulated and 22 downregulated), 23 (15 upregulated and 8 downregulated), and 7 (5 upregulated and 2 downregulated) known genes, respectively. Our data indicate that the numbers of differentially expressed genes were more upregulated than downregulated, and several genes showed conserved signaling to previously known functions. Thus, functional characterization of differentially expressed genes revealed several categories that are involved in important biological processes, including pigmentation, growth, molecular mechanisms, fat metabolism, cell proliferation, immune response, lipid metabolism, and protein synthesis and degradation. The results of the present study demonstrate that the genes associated with canthaxanthin, natural lutein, and orangeII are key regulatory genes that control the regulatory mechanisms of pigmentation.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China Tarique_tunio@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Tarique
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Mohsina
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Agro-Product Quality and Safety, Institute of Quality Standards and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D008297:Male; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D010858:Pigmentation / Q000235:genetics*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D059467:Transcriptome