Transcriptomic Analysis of Heat Stress Response in the Liver of Broiler Chickens

Heat stress is known to reduce production in the broiler industry. Overall yield is reduced, creating a less valuable product. We are interested in studying the effects of the heat stress response as it relates to the liver of a modern broiler line (Ross708).  Birds were raised at normal temperatures for 21 days, then half were kept at normal temperature and half were subjected to 43C heat stress for 8 hours during the day, simulating a heat wave. Tissues were harvested via necropsy at day 28 post hatch and flash frozen in liquid nitrogen.  RNA transcriptome libraries were prepared from 8 control and 8 heat stressed livers and Relative Tissue Expression Analysis performed on each condition to identify enriched genes. These lists were analyzed with multiple pathway analysis programs to determine biological relationships between conditions.