Breast muscle development from embryo to adult in chicken

The pursuit of fast growing and high quality meat breeds has always been the core goal in the poultry industry. Lushi blue-shell-egg (LS) chicken is typical of the dual-purpose Chinese indigenous chicken breeds with superior meat quality, while Arbor Acres (AA) broiler is popular as a commercial meat-type breed marked by fast-growth and breast muscling. Comparative studies on transcriptome profiles of breast muscle between AA broiler and LS chicken are expected to identify genes and pathways involved in embryonic myofiber formation, posthatch muscle fiber hypertrophy, and ultimately meat quality in chicken. Herein, 42 RNA-seq libraries were constructed using RNA samples of breast muscles collected from embryos incubated for 10 days (E10), 14 days (E14) and 18 days (E18), as well as from chickens at the age of 1 day (1D), 1 week (1W), 3 weeks (3W) and 5 weeks (5W) posthatch. the transcriptomes from the seven developmental stages between LS chicken and AA broiler presented here provide a valuable resource for the discovery of the signaling pathways and regulatory networks underlying breast muscle development in chicken.