title: Molecular tools to support metabolic and immune function research in the Guinea Fowl (Numida meleagris).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Guinea fowl (Numidia meleagris) production as an alternative source of meat and poultry has shown potential for economic viability. However, there has been little progress in characterizing the transcriptome of the guinea fowl. In this study RNA-sequencing and de novo transcriptome assembly of several Guinea fowl tissues (pancreas, hypothalamus, liver, bone marrow and bursa) which play key roles in regulating feed intake, satiety, and immune function was performed using Illumina's Hi-Seq 2000.
  
  
  RESULTS
  74 million sequences were generated and assembled into 96,492 contigs using the Trinity software suite. Over 39,000 of these transcripts were found to have in silico translated protein sequences that are homologous to chicken protein sequences. Gene ontology analysis uncovered 416 transcripts with metabolic functions and 703 with immune function.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The transcriptome information presented here will support the development of molecular approaches to improve production efficiency of the guinea fowl and other avian species.
authors.affiliation: College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. carldarris@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Carl E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Darris
authors.affiliation: College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. JTYUS615@gmail.com.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Tyus
authors.affiliation: College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. gkelley82@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kelley
authors.affiliation: Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. ropelews@psc.edu.
authors.forename: Alexander J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Ropelewski
authors.affiliation: Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. hugh_67@msn.com.
authors.forename: Hugh B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Nicholas
authors.affiliation: College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. xwang@tnstate.edu.
authors.forename: Xiaofei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. snahashon@tnstate.edu.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nahashon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D046094:Galliformes / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D009928:Organ Specificity; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D012984:Software