Muscle transcriptional profiles of chickens from slow and fast growing lines with different degree of WS and WB myopathies

Broiler industry is facing an increasing prevalence of breast myopathies such as white striping (WS) and wooden breast (WB), whose precise etiology remains poorly understood. In order to progress in the understanding of the structural changes and the molecular pathways involved in these myopathies, and identify biomarkers, a transcriptomic analysis using an 8×60K Agilent chicken microarray was performed. The study used pectoralis major muscles from three groups: slow-growing animals (n=8), fast-growing animals visually free from defects (n=8) or severely affected by both WS and WB (n=8). In addition, a weighted correlation network analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between modules of co-expressed genes and histological traits. Gene expression was measured in pectoralis major muscles from three groups: slow-growing animals, visually free from defects (SG, n=8) and fast-growing animals visually free from defects (FG-C, n=8) or severely affected by both WS and WB defects (FG-WSWB, n=8), at 42 days of age.