Expression data from chicken adipose tissue at 7-week of age

Excessive accumulation of lipids in the adipose tissue is a major problem in the present-day broiler industry. However, few studies have analyzed the expression of adipose tissue genes that are involved in pathways and mechanisms leading to adiposity in chickens. Gene expression profiling of chicken adipose tissue could provide key information about the ontogenesis of fatness and clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying obesity. Chicken Genome Arrays were used to construct an adipose tissue gene expression profile of 7-week-old broilers, and to screen adipose tissue genes that are differentially expressed in lean and fat lines divergently selected over eight generations for high and low abdominal fat weight. Keywords: two lines comparison Birds were slaughtered at 7 weeks and abdominal fat was isolated, immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80oC. The ten birds used in the present study were chosen by the percentage of abdominal fat (AFP): five had the highest AFP and the other five had the lowest for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays..