Hepatic heat shock proteins, antioxidant-related genes, and immunocompetence of heat-stressed broilers in response to short periods of incubation during egg storage and thermal conditioning.

Short Periods of Incubation During Egg Storage (SPIDES) approach improves chick quality and hatching rates. Also, embryonic thermal conditioning (TC) is a strategy for enhancing thermotolerance in avian species. Until now, evaluating the effect of either SPIDES or embryonic TC effects has only been separately conducted, so we hypothesized that combining TC and SPIDES may enhance the response of broilers to thermal stress. Eight hundred Ross broiler eggs were divided into two groups; the first one was kept under appropriate storage room conditions, S (control) The 2nd was subjected to SPIDES for 5 h at 37.8 C ± 0.1 three times at days 5, 10, and 15 (S) after egg collection respectively. On the 14th day of incubation (DOI) each of the two main groups was randomly divided into two equal subgroups; the control one was left under the appropriate incubation settings (TC) whereas the other received prenatal heat conditioning (TC) at 39.5 C ± 0.1 for 6 h/d from the 14th to the 18th embryonic day (E), resulting finally in four experimental subgroups (STC, STC, STC & STC). RESULTS: showed that SPIDES treatment improved the hatchability of the stored eggs by almost 20% compared to untreated eggs. A combination of SPIDES and TC (STC) increased significantly the levels of Immunoglobulin (IgG and IgM) production at hatch and heat-stressed birds. Our findings revealed that the hepatic heat shock proteins (hsp70, 90 A,90 B, 60 and hspA9), antioxidants-related genes (CAT, and SOD2), and NADPH4 were significantly downregulated in the thermally conditioned group that challenged with thermal stress conditions. As opposed to that, the SPIDES group showed a significant increase in hepatic heat shock proteins, antioxidants-related genes, and NADPH4 when subjected to thermal-stress conditions. In conclusion, the combination of SPIDES and TC has a positive effect on some pre and post-hatch traits of broiler chicks. Under heat stress challenge, thermal conditioning can modify the expression of antioxidant-related genes and Hsps, leading to the enhanced acquisition of thermotolerance as evidenced by lower expression of Hsps and NADPH4. While SPIDES does not have a significant role in thermotolerance acquisition.