Transcriptome of Adipose Tissue during Early Development of Broiler Chickens

Adipose tissue has been a focus of studies due to its important functions in energy metabolism, inflammation, and endocrine regulation. In chickens, extensive selection for rapid growth is adversely accompanied by increased adipose tissues. It is of great interest to reduce the accretion of adipose tissue by genetic selection through application of molecular genetics knowledge. Analysis of adipose transcriptome may provide essential information on the genetic network that governs the development of adipose tissues. We have analyzed the transcriptome of abdominal adipose tissue using massive parallel sequencing. RNA samples from 2 and 8 weeks of age were sequenced using Illumina HiSeq2000. We have acquired 320 million paired-end reads, which were assembled intro 554686 transcripts using the Trinity software suite.  Differential expression of transcripts were determined based on read counts (FPKM). A total of 428 genes (assembled transcripts) were identified as differentially expressed  in the fat tissue between 2 and 8 weeks of age. We have also identified SNPs and small insertion/deletion variants from the fat transcriptome.