• Animal Bioscience
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.367-376
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• 2022

Objective: The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) is a threat to the poultry industry as well as the economy and remains a potential source of pandemic infection in humans. Antiviral genes are considered a potential factor for HPAIV resistance. Therefore, in this study, we investigated gene expression related to cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions by comparing resistant and susceptible Ri chicken lines for avian influenza virus infection. Methods: Ri chickens of resistant (Mx/A; BF2/B21) and susceptible (Mx/G; BF2/B13) lines were selected by genotyping the Mx dynamin like GTPase (Mx) and major histocompatibility complex class I antigen BF2 genes. These chickens were then infected with influenza A virus subtype H5N1, and their lung tissues were collected for RNA sequencing. Results: In total, 972 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were observed between resistant and susceptible Ri chickens, according to the gene ontology and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes pathways. In particular, DEGs associated with cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions were most abundant. The expression levels of cytokines (interleukin-1β [IL-1β], IL-6, IL-8, and IL-18), chemokines (C-C Motif chemokine ligand 4 [CCL4] and CCL17), interferons (IFN-γ), and IFN-stimulated genes (Mx1, CCL19, 2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthase-like, and protein kinase R) were higher in H5N1-resistant chickens than in H5N1-susceptible chickens. Conclusion: Resistant chickens show stronger immune responses and antiviral activity (cytokines, chemokines, and IFN-stimulated genes) than those of susceptible chickens against HPAIV infection.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.2192-2198
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• 2016

The myeloid-specific IgA Fc receptor ($Fc{\alpha}R$) is a cell surface molecule on immunocytes that provides a fundamental connection between humoral and cellular immunity. In this study, the full-length cDNA sequence of swine $Fc{\alpha}RI$ ($swFc{\alpha}RI$) was isolated and characterized and found to contain a 792-base-pair open reading frame, encoding a 264-amino-acid transmembrane glycoprotein with a predicted molecular mass of 29.4 kDa. The $swFc{\alpha}RI$ shares high amino acid sequence homology (>50%) with its counterparts from cattle, seal, and horse. Rosetting analysis confirmed that COS-7 cells transfected with an $swFc{\alpha}RI$ expression plasmid was able to combine with chicken erythrocytes sensitized with porcine IgA, but not IgG.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.73.1-73.16
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• 2023

Background: Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) is considered a global threat to both human health and the poultry industry. MicroRNAs (miRNA) can modulate the immune system by affecting gene expression patterns in HPAIV-infected chickens. Objectives: To gain further insights into the role of miRNAs in immune responses against H5N1 infection, as well as the development of strategies for breeding disease-resistant chickens, we characterized miRNA expression patterns in tracheal tissues from H5N1-infected Ri chickens. Methods: miRNAs expression was analyzed from two H5N1-infected Ri chicken lines using small RNA sequencing. The target genes of differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs were predicted using miRDB. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis were then conducted. Furthermore, using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, we validated the expression levels of DE miRNAs (miR-22-3p, miR-146b-3p, miR27b-3p, miR-128-3p, miR-2188-5p, miR-451, miR-205a, miR-203a, miR-21-3p, and miR-200a3p) from all comparisons and their immune-related target genes. Results: A total of 53 miRNAs were significantly expressed in the infection samples of the resistant compared to the susceptible line. Network analyses between the DE miRNAs and target genes revealed that DE miRNAs may regulate the expression of target genes involved in the transforming growth factor-beta, mitogen-activated protein kinase, and Toll-like receptor signaling pathways, all of which are related to influenza A virus progression. Conclusions: Collectively, our results provided novel insights into the miRNA expression patterns of tracheal tissues from H5N1-infected Ri chickens. More importantly, our findings offer insights into the relationship between miRNA and immune-related target genes and the role of miRNA in HPAIV infections in chickens.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.5.1-5.8
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• 2015

Background: Korean native chicken (KNC) is a well-known breed due to its superior meat taste. This breed, however, owing to a low growth rate, has a high market price. In order to overcome this disadvantage, the National Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) in Korea developed a commercial KNC breed, named Woorimatdag version 2 (WM2), an upgraded version of the Woorimatdag (WM1) breed and the WM2 was created by crossing the KNC with meat type breeds. This study aims to discriminate between WM2 and other chicken breeds using microsatellite (MS) markers. Methods: A total of 302 individuals from eight Korean chicken populations were examined. The genetic diversity and population structure analysis were investigated using Cervus, API-CALC, STRUCTURE, PowerMarker programs. Results: Based on heterozygosity and polymorphic information content (PIC) values, 30 MS markers were initially selected from 150 markers. The identified average number of alleles (Na), expected heterozygosity, and PIC values for the WM2 samples were 7.17, 0.741, and 0.682, respectively. Additionally, the paternity of individuals was assigned with a success rate of greater than 99% using 12 markers, the best minimum number of markers. The 12 selected markers contained heterozygosity and PIC values above 0.7 and probability of identity values around zero. Using these markers, the determined probability of identity (PI), $PI_{half-sibs}$, and $PI_{sibs}$ values were 3.23E-33, 5.03E-22, and 8.61E-08, respectively. Conclusions: WM2 is well differentiated with respect to other chicken breeds based on estimated genetic distances. The results presented here will contribute to the identification of commercial WM2 chicken in the market.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1077-1082
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• 2010

This study was performed to investigate the nutritional conditions controlling keratinase activity in Bacillus megaterium F7-1. B. megaterium F7-1 produced keratinase using chicken feather as a sole source of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur. Addition of the feather medium with glucose enhanced keratinase production (68.9 U/ml), compared to control without glucose (63.2 U/ml). The synthesis of keratinase was repressed by addition of $NH_4Cl$ in B. megaterium F7-1. The highest keratinase production (70.9 U/ml) was obtained with the feather medium containing glucose and $MgSO_4{\cdot}7H_2O$. Keratinase was produced in the absence of feather (4.9 U/ml), indicating its constitutive synthesis. Feather degradation resulted in free SH group formation. B. megaterium F7-1 effectively degraded chicken feather meal (86%), whereas duck feather, human nail, human hair and sheep wool displayed relatively low degradation rates (8-34%).

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.292-301
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• 2010

Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) is a pituitary glycoprotein hormone that is encoded by separate alpha- and betasubunit genes. It plays a key role in stimulating and regulating ovarian follicular development and egg production in chicken. FSH signal transduction is mediated by the FSH receptor (FSHR) that exclusively interacts with the beta-subunit of FSH, but characterization of prokaryotic expression of the FSHb gene and its effect on the expression of the FSHR gene in local chickens have received very little attention. In the current study, the cDNA fragment of the FSHb gene from Dagu chicken was amplified using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and inserted into the pET-28a (+) vector to construct the pET-28a-FSHb plasmid. After expression of the plasmid in E. coli BL21 (DE3) under inducing conditions, the recombination protein, $FSH{\beta}$ subunit, was purified and injected into the experimental hens and the effect on the mRNA expression levels of the FSHR gene was investigated. Sequence comparison showed that the coding region of the FSHb gene in the local chicken shared 99%-100% homology to published nucleotides in chickens; only one synonymous nucleotide substitution was detected in the region. The encoded amino acids were completely identical with the reported sequence, which confirmed that the sequences of the chicken FSHb gene and the peptides of the $FSH{\beta}$ subunit are highly conserved. This may be due to the critical role of the normal function of the FSHb gene in hormonal specificity and regulation of reproduction. The results of gene expression revealed that a recombinant protein with a molecular weight of about 19 kDa was efficiently expressed and it was identified by Western blotting analysis. After administration of the purified $FSH{\beta}$ protein, significantly higher expression levels were demonstrated in uterus, ovary and oviduct samples (p<0.05). These observations suggested that the expressed $FSH{\beta}$ protein possesses biological activity, and has a potential role in regulation of reproductive physiology in chickens.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.266-272
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• 2016

The separation and purification of lysozyme enzyme from chicken egg white (CEW) solution was studied using the dead-end filtration. The optimum operation conditions of the dead-end filtration reveal that the maximum value of permselectivity of lysozyme to the other proteins of ovalbumin and conalbumin in the CEW solution was tested with change of molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of ultrafitration membrane and pH of the CEW solution. The optimum operation conditions for the efficient permeable separation of lysozyme from the CEW solution are that the membrane MWCO is 30 kD and the pH of CEW solution is 11. At this optimum operation conditions, the maximum value of permselectivity of lysozyme to total proteins in CEW solution is about 83.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1134-1140
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• 2018

Objective: Fatty acid composition is one of the most important meat quality traits because it can contribute to functional, sensorial, and nutritional factors. In this study, quantitative trait locus (QTL) analyses for fatty acid composition traits were investigated in thigh and breast meat of Korean native chicken (KNC). Methods: In total, 18 fatty acid composition traits were investigated from each meat sample using 83 parents, and 595 $F_1$ chicks of 20 week old. Genotype assessment was performed using 171 informative DNA markers on 26 autosomes. The KNC linkage map was constructed by CRI-MAP software, which calculated genetic distances, with map orders between markers. The half-sib and full-sib QTL analyses were performed using GridQTL and SOLAR programs, respectively. Results: In total, 30 QTLs (12 in the thigh and 18 in the breast meat) were detected by the half-sib analysis and 7 QTLs (3 in the thigh and 4 in the breast meat) were identified by the full-sib analysis. Conclusion: With further verification of the QTL regions using additional markers and positional candidate gene studies, these results can provide valuable information for determining causative mutations affecting the fatty acid composition of KNC meat. Moreover, these findings may aid in the selection of birds with favorable fatty acid composition traits.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.1307-1314
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• 2010

This study was conducted to isolate and characterize a novel feather-degrading bacterium producing keratinase activity. A strain K9 was isolated from soil at poultry farm and identified as Xanthomonas sp. K9 by phenotypic characters and 16S rRNA gene analysis. The cultural conditions for the keratinase production were 0.3% fructose, 0.1% gelatin, 0.04% $K_2HPO_4$, 0.06% $KH_2PO_4$, 0.05% NaCl and 0.01% $FeSO_4$ with an initial pH 8.0 at $30^{\circ}C$ and 200 rpm. In an optimized medium containing 0.1% chicken feather, production yield of keratinase was approximately 8-fold higher than the yield in basal medium. The strain K9 effectively degraded chicken feather meal (67%) and duck feather (54%), whereas human nail and human hair showed relatively low degradation rates (13-22%). Total free amino acid concentration in the cell-free supernatant was about 25.799 mg/l. Feather hydrolysate produced by the strain K9 stimulated growth of red pepper, indicating Xanthomonas sp. K9 could be not only used to increase the nutritional value of chicken feather but also a potential candidate for the development of natural fertilizer applicable to crop plant soil.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2016

Prediction of growth patterns of commercial chicken strains is important. It can provide visual assessment of growth as function of time and prediction body weight (BW) at a specific age. The aim of current study is to compare the three nonlinear functions (i.e., Logistic, Gompertz, and von Betalanffy) for modeling the growth of twenty five commercial Korean native chicken (KNC) strains reared under a battery cage system until 32 weeks of age and to evaluate the three models with regard to their ability to describe the relationship between BW and age. A clear difference in growth pattern among 25 strains were observed and classified in to the groups according to their growth patterns. The highest and lowest estimated values for asymptotic body weight (C) for 3H and 5W were given by von Bertalanffy and Logistic model 4629.7 g for 2197.8 g respectively. The highest estimated parameter for maturating rate (b) was given by Logistic model 0.249 corresponds to the 2F and lowest in von Bertalanffy model 0.094 for 4Y. According to the coefficient of determination ($R^2$) and mean square of error (MSE), Gompertz and von Bertalanffy models were suitable to describe the growth of Korean native chicken. Moreover, von Bertalannfy model was well described the most of KNC growth with biologically meaningful parameter compared to Gompertz model.