GSE184565
Long-Term Consumption Of Poultry Egg Products Provided Stable Growth Demographics, Body Composition, Glucose Control, And Liver Gene Expression In The Zebrafish Danio rerio
Background: Poultry eggs are a low cost, high protein nutrient package that can be consumed as part of a quality diet. However, consumption of poultry egg products has been historically contentious, which highlights the importance of investigating impacts of long-term egg consumption on metabolic health. Objective: Our study utilized the zebrafish Danio rerio, a newly-defined model of human metabolic health, to understand the metabolic consequence of consuming egg products in lieu of other well-described protein sources. Methods: Reference diets were formulated to contain multi-source protein with casein and fish protein hydrolysate (CON; control protein sources), the protein sources of which have been vetted in numerous reference diets. These proteins were then replaced in part with either whole egg (WE; protein and lipid source), egg white (EW; protein source), wheat gluten (WG; cereal protein source), or a high lipid content diet containing a multi-source protein with casein and fish protein hydrolysate (HFCON; isonitrogenous and isolipidic with the WE diet) in a 34-week trial. Daily feeding was initiated at early juvenile life stage and terminated at late reproductive adult stage. Results: The amino acid composition of control vs egg product diets did not vary substantially, although methionine and lysine were apparently limiting in fish fed WG. At termination, fish fed EW as the protein source had similar weight gain and body composition to those fed the CON diet. Blood glucose, both fasting and postprandial, did not differ among any dietary treatment. Assessment of the liver transcriptome using RNAseq revealed no differential gene expression between zebrafish fed CON or WE diets. Zebrafish fed WG had lower weight gain in males. Conclusions: Long-term consumption of egg products promoted metabolic health equal to that of historically-relevant proteins. These data support the value of egg products for maintaining long-term metabolic health in animal diets. Overall design: Zebrafish housed in standard conditions were fed either a control diet or a whole egg-based diet starting at 21 days of age and continuing to 36 weeks of age. At 36 weeks, the livers from these fish were harvested for RNA sequencing.