Abstract
Woody breast (WB) myopathy results in poor muscle quality. The increasing incidence of WB over the last several years indicates a need for improved prediction or early diagnosis. We hypothesized that the use of body fluids, including blood, may be more suitable than breast muscle tissue in developing a minimally invasive diagnostic tool for WB detection. To identify potential early-age-biomarkers that may represent the potential onset of WB, blood samples were collected from 100, 4 wks old commercial male broilers. At 8 wks of age, WB conditions were scored by manual palpation. A total of 32 blood plasma samples (eight for each group of WB and non-WB control birds at two time points, 4 wks and 8 wks) were subjected to shotgun proteomics and untargeted metabolomics to identify differentially abundant plasma proteins and metabolites in WB broilers compared to non-WB control (Con) broilers. From the proteomics assay, 25 and 16 plasma proteins were differentially abundant (p < 0.05) in the 4 and 8 wks old samples, respectively, in WB compared with Con broilers. Of those, FRA10A associated CGG repeat 1 (FRAG10AC1) showed >2-fold higher abundance in WB compared with controls. In the 8 wks old broilers, 4 and 12 plasma proteins displayed higher and lower abundances, respectively, in WB compared with controls. Myosin heavy chain 9 (MYH9) and lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP) showed more than 2-fold higher abundances in WB compared with controls, while transferrin (TF) and complement C1s (C1S) showed more than 2-fold lower abundances compared with controls. From the untargeted metabolomics assay, 33 and 19 plasma metabolites were differentially abundant in birds at 4 and 8 wks of age, respectively, in WB compared with controls. In 4 wks old broilers, plasma 3-hydroxybutyric acid (3-HB) and raffinose concentrations showed the highest and lowest fold changes, respectively, in WB compared with controls. The blood plasma 3-HB and raffinose concentrations were confirmed with targeted biochemical assays. Blood biomarkers, such as 3-HB and raffinose, may be suitable candidate targets in the prediction of WB onset at early ages.
Highlights
The incidence of woody breast (WB) myopathy has increased in the last several years, possibly in response to genetic selection for growth performance and a shift to heavier market weight birds (Velleman, 2015; Kuttappan et al, 2017; Lake and Abasht, 2020)
Blood samples were centrifuged and plasma was stored at −20◦C until examined for metabolomics and proteomics
25 and 16 plasma proteins were differentially abundant (p < 0.05) at 4 (Table 1) and 8 wks of age (Table 2), respectively, in Woody breast (WB) compared with controls
Summary
The incidence of woody breast (WB) myopathy has increased in the last several years, possibly in response to genetic selection for growth performance and a shift to heavier market weight birds (Velleman, 2015; Kuttappan et al, 2017; Lake and Abasht, 2020). Extensive investigations on WB myopathy characterized etiopathogenic mechanisms in breast muscle during the disease progression (Velleman and Clark, 2015; Abasht et al, 2016; Papah et al, 2017; Sihvo et al, 2017; Brothers et al, 2019; Greene et al, 2019; Maharjan et al, 2019; Petracci et al, 2019; Lake and Abasht, 2020) Those muscular mechanisms include phlebitis and inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic dysfunction, myofiber degeneration, lipid deposition and development of hard pectoral muscle, resulting in poor muscle quality. The purpose of this study was to identify differentially abundant blood plasma proteins and metabolite biomarkers in efforts to explore identifying early-age-biomarkers that can represent the potential onset of WB using shotgun proteomics and untargeted metabolomics methods, respectively
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