Herrera-Sánchez María Paula, Rodríguez-Hernández Roy, Rondón-Barragán Iang Schroniltgen
Poultry Research Group, Laboratory of Immunology and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics, Universidad del Tolima, Altos de Santa Helena, Ibagué 730006299, Tolima, Colombia.
Immunobiology and Pathogenesis Research Group, Laboratory of Immunology and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics, Universidad del Tolima, Altos de Santa Helena, Ibagué 730006299, Tolima, Colombia.
Vet Med Int. 2025 Mar 21;2025:3041254. doi: 10.1155/vmi/3041254. eCollection 2025.
Different conditions of production systems including stocking density, thermal conditions, and behavior restriction can have a significant detrimental effect on the health and performance of laying hens. The conventional cage system is one of the systems that have been reported to cause stress problems in birds, due to social and behavioral stress. Emerging technologies have facilitated a deeper understanding of animal responses to various scenarios and can be an additional tool to conventional ones to assess animal welfare, where transcriptomic analysis has the potential to show the genetic changes that occur in response to stress. According to this, the aim of this work was to characterize the liver transcriptome of hens housed under two egg production systems (conventional cage and cage-free). Liver tissue from Hy-Line Brown hens housed in conventional cage ( = 3) and cage-free ( = 3) production systems at week 80 of age was processed using the Illumina platform to identify differentially expressed genes with a padj < 0.05. Regarding the differentially expressed genes, 138 genes were found, of which 81 were upregulated and 57 downregulated. Some of the genes of interest were and , which would indicate greater fat synthesis in the liver of caged hens. The enriched KEGG pathways were DNA replication and the cell cycle. In conclusion, it was identified that the cage production system may influence DNA replication and the cell cycle since the genes related to these terms were found suppressed, which would indicate cellular instability.
不同的生产系统条件，包括饲养密度、热条件和行为限制，可能会对蛋鸡的健康和生产性能产生重大不利影响。传统的笼养系统是据报道会因社会和行为压力而导致禽类出现应激问题的系统之一。新兴技术有助于更深入地了解动物对各种情况的反应，并且可以作为传统方法之外的另一种工具来评估动物福利，其中转录组分析有可能显示出因应激而发生的基因变化。据此，本研究的目的是表征饲养在两种产蛋系统（传统笼养和散养）下母鸡的肝脏转录组。使用Illumina平台对80周龄时饲养在传统笼养（n = 3）和散养（n = 3）生产系统中的海兰褐母鸡的肝脏组织进行处理，以鉴定padj < 0.05的差异表达基因。关于差异表达基因，共发现138个基因，其中81个上调，57个下调。一些感兴趣的基因是 和 ，这表明笼养母鸡肝脏中的脂肪合成增加。富集的KEGG通路是DNA复制和细胞周期。总之，已确定笼养生产系统可能会影响DNA复制和细胞周期，因为与这些术语相关的基因被发现受到抑制，这表明细胞不稳定。
