What's in a chicken: using NMR metabolomics to investigate stress in broiler chickens

Stress has the potential to adversely affect the health of chickens. Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy-based metabolomics objectives were to: ascertain the effects of physiological stress on the metabolomes of chicken liver, kidney, and breast muscle; compare sample preparation techniques for fecal metabolomics; and determine if NMR spectra can be obtained from feather pulp, and the effects of age and stress on the pulp metabolome. Physiological stress modulated chicken metabolism in all tissues examined, and caused the diversion of energy to muscle catabolism and gluconeogenesis. Ultrafiltration was the most versatile, reproducible, and efficient fecal metabolite extraction method; however, Bligh-Dyer extraction and no extraction with baseline correction produced comparable results. High quality NMR spectra were obtained from chicken feather pulp, and both age and stress significantly altered the pulp metabolome. The results obtained are foundational to the identification of novel biomarkers of stress for use in chicken production settings.

Author

• Brown, Catherine

• nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics
• Metabolites -- Research
• Stress (Physiology) -- Research
• Biochemical markers -- Research
• Dissertations, Academic
• Broilers (Chickens) -- Health
• Nuclear magnetic resonance

Identifier

hdl:10133/6126

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/6126