Integrated Analysis of Liver Transcriptome and Metabolome Response to Heat Stress

As climate warms, the anticipated increase in the length and severity of heat waves is expected to have a negative impact on livestock production. To model the impact of a heat wave, these experiments exposed broiler chickens to cyclic heat stress (35^oC) for 8 hours per day for 7 days. After the 8 hours, the temperature was reduced to thermoneutral (25^oC). Control birds were maintained at 25^oC throughout the course of the trial. At the end of one week, necropsies were performed and tissues isolated from both treated and control birds. Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses were performed on liver samples. Integrated analysis of the data identified several responses to the heat stress including differences affecting: the cell cycle, glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, lipolysis, lipogenesis and glutathione levels.