Abstract
Poultry meat quality is associated with breed, age, tissue and other factors. Many previous studies have focused on distinct breeds; however, little is known regarding the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in different age stages, such as DNA methylation. Here, we compared the global DNA methylation profiles between juvenile (20 weeks old) and later laying-period (55 weeks old) hens and identified candidate genes related to the development and meat quality of breast muscle using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing. The results showed that the later laying-period hens, which had a higher intramuscular fat (IMF) deposition capacity and water holding capacity (WHC) and less tenderness, exhibited higher global DNA methylation levels than the juvenile hens. A total of 2,714 differentially methylated regions were identified in the present study, which corresponded to 378 differentially methylated genes, mainly affecting muscle development, lipid metabolism, and the ageing process. Hypermethylation of the promoters of the genes ABCA1, COL6A1 and GSTT1L and the resulting transcriptional down-regulation in the later laying-period hens may be the reason for the significant difference in the meat quality between the juvenile and later laying-period hens. These findings contribute to a better understanding of epigenetic regulation in the skeletal muscle development and meat quality of chicken.
Highlights
Poultry meat quality is associated with breed, age, tissue and other factors
We measured the transcriptome of the breast muscle in the different age groups (Jiang et al 2016, unpublished data) and identified some differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that were closely related with energy and protein metabolism, lipid metabolism, skeletal muscle cell differentiation and meat quality parameters between the juvenile and later laying-period hens
The triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in the serum were significantly increased (P < 0.05), especially the TG level, which showed a 14.74-fold change, whereas no significant difference in the total cholesterol content (THO) (P = 0.064) (Fig. 1e). These results suggested that fat deposition ability increased and the lipid metabolism ability decreased with age in Gushi hens
Summary
Poultry meat quality is associated with breed, age, tissue and other factors. Many previous studies have focused on distinct breeds; little is known regarding the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in different age stages, such as DNA methylation. We compared the global DNA methylation profiles between juvenile (20 weeks old) and later laying-period (55 weeks old) hens and identified candidate genes related to the development and meat quality of breast muscle using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing. We measured the transcriptome of the breast muscle in the different age groups (Jiang et al 2016, unpublished data) and identified some differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that were closely related with energy and protein metabolism, lipid metabolism, skeletal muscle cell differentiation and meat quality parameters between the juvenile and later laying-period hens. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential regulatory roles of DNA methylation affecting the differences in breast meat quality between the two age stages through regulating the expression of related genes. The results of this study may contribute to our understanding of the improvement of poultry meat quality and provide some basis and reference data for the study of genomic epigenetics in poultry
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