Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.
Department of Poultry Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 11;11(1):3649. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83293-y.
Heat stress (HS) is devastating to the poultry industry due to its adverse effects on animal well-being and performance. The effects of heat stress are typically measured using a portable i-STAT blood analyzer that quantifies circulatory hemoglobin concentration and other blood chemistry parameters. Here, we used diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) as a novel non-invasive method to directly determine changes in hematological parameters in the breast tissues of live heat-stressed broilers. Three-week-old male broilers were randomly subjected to two environmental conditions (thermoneutral, TN, 24 °C vs. cyclic heat stress, HS, 35 °C, 12 h/day). Optical spectra were acquired using DRS to monitor breast hemoglobin (Hb) concentration and vascular oxygen saturation (sO) at three time points: at baseline prior to heat stress, 2 days, and 21 days after initiation of HS. While i-STAT did not demonstrate a discernible change due to HS in circulatory hemoglobin, DRS found a significant decrease in breast Hb and sO after exposure to chronic HS. The decrease in sO was found to be due to a decrease in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration, indicating a large increase in oxygen consumption in heat-stressed broilers. Our results demonstrate that DRS could potentially be used to study the effects of HS directly in specific organs of interest, such as the breast and thigh, to improve meat quality.
热应激（HS）对家禽业造成了毁灭性的影响，因为它对动物的健康和性能产生了不利影响。热应激的影响通常使用便携式 i-STAT 血液分析仪进行测量，该分析仪可量化循环血红蛋白浓度和其他血液化学参数。在这里，我们使用漫反射光谱（DRS）作为一种新颖的非侵入性方法，直接确定活体热应激肉鸡乳房组织中血液参数的变化。将三周龄雄性肉鸡随机置于两种环境条件下（常温，TN，24°C 与周期性热应激，HS，35°C，12 小时/天）。使用 DRS 采集光学光谱，以在三个时间点监测乳房血红蛋白（Hb）浓度和血管氧饱和度（sO）：在热应激前、2 天和开始 HS 后 21 天的基线。虽然 i-STAT 没有显示由于 HS 导致循环血红蛋白发生可辨别的变化，但 DRS 发现暴露于慢性 HS 后，乳房 Hb 和 sO 显著下降。sO 的下降是由于氧合血红蛋白浓度下降所致，表明热应激肉鸡的耗氧量大量增加。我们的结果表明，DRS 可能可用于直接研究 HS 对感兴趣的特定器官（如乳房和大腿）的影响，以改善肉质。
