Abstract
BackgroundFeather pecking is a serious behavioral disorder in chickens that has a considerable impact on animal welfare and poses an economic burden for poultry farming. To study the underlying genetics of feather pecking animals were divergently selected for feather pecking over 15 generations based on estimated breeding values for the behavior.Methods and resultsBy characterizing the transcriptomes of whole brains isolated from high and low feather pecking chickens in response to light stimulation we discovered a putative dysregulation of micro RNA processing caused by a lack of Dicer1. This results in a prominent downregulation of the GABRB2 gene and other GABA receptor transcripts, which might cause a constant high level of excitation in the brains of high feather pecking chickens. Moreover, our results point towards an increase in immune system-related transcripts that may be caused by higher interferon concentrations due to Dicer1 downregulation.ConclusionBased on our results, we conclude that feather pecking in chickens and schizophrenia in humans have numerous common features. For instance, a Dicer1 dependent disruption of miRNA biogenesis and the lack of GABRB2 expression have been linked to schizophrenia pathogenesis. Furthermore, disturbed circadian rhythms and dysregulation of genes involved in the immune system are common features of both conditions.
Highlights
Feather pecking (FP) in chickens is a damaging obsessive behavioral disorder with a genetic component [1]
Low feather peckers (LFP) respond to light by upregulation of 714 and downregulation of 11 transcripts with 249 of these transcripts annotated as non-coding RNAs
To highlight the different directions of expression of a majority of these transcripts log2 fold changes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from the high feather peckers (HFP) group in comparison to the LFP group are shown in a heatmap (Fig. 1c)
Summary
Feather pecking (FP) in chickens is a damaging obsessive behavioral disorder with a genetic component [1]. Methods and results By characterizing the transcriptomes of whole brains isolated from high and low feather pecking chickens in response to light stimulation we discovered a putative dysregulation of micro RNA processing caused by a lack of Dicer. Methods and results By characterizing the transcriptomes of whole brains isolated from high and low feather pecking chickens in response to light stimulation we discovered a putative dysregulation of micro RNA processing caused by a lack of Dicer1 This results in a prominent downregulation of the GABRB2 gene and other GABA receptor transcripts, which might cause a constant high level of excitation in the brains of high feather pecking chickens. Conclusion Based on our results, we conclude that feather pecking in chickens and schizophrenia in humans have numerous common features. Disturbed circadian rhythms and dysregulation of genes involved in the immune system are common features of both conditions
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