Identification of Genetic Traits for Capacity to Digest Non-Standard Feed Materials in Meat Poultry

虽然家禽是对环境影响最小的陆生肉类，但家禽养殖公司现在必须紧急考虑快速变化的食品生产环境所需的性状。家禽使其胃肠道适应非大豆、低碳蛋白质来源、饮食中包含生物基副产品以及在温度波动期间保持肠道健康的能力是目前育种计划中未考虑的特征。全球育种公司安伟捷拥有世界领先的先进遗传选择技术，使他们能够为家禽业提供一致的遗传改良。该项目的总体目标是利用NTU/UoN在新兴饲料材料方面的专业知识，并将其与安伟捷遗传评估计划联合收割机相结合，以确定家禽对不断变化的饮食和环境条件的反应机制。这将使与快速变化的未来所需的效率和弹性相关的基因得以确定。该项目还将开发用于评估家禽肠道健康的整体系统，目前缺乏这种系统，因为现有的方法进行起来非常缓慢和昂贵，并且通常只考虑肠道健康的一个因素。安伟捷将为NTU和UoN提供来自不同遗传系和环境条件的样本。目前，高场核磁共振（NMR）传感技术通常用于人类患者的代谢组学研究，但其令人望而却步的尺寸和成本表明低场（60 MHz）台式仪器的作用，NTU通过Philippe Wilson教授在国际上寻求该领域的专业知识该项目的目标1是建立肠道健康的整体衡量标准。紧凑的低场NMR似乎是开发新方法的可能候选者，但NTU和Aviagen在肠道健康方面的专业知识意味着许多其他选择可以与NMR一起评估，因此可以开发快速，成本效益高的措施。目标2是确定不同遗传系的肉禽在标准和高温环境下对紧急饲料材料的反应。满足该鸟品系的营养需求，但使用可能对肠道健康和消化效率产生更大挑战的新型饲料成分配制的饲料将在两种环境中饲喂两个遗传品系。测量的参数将包括生产效率和肠道结构的经典测量，以及通过第一个目标开发的新参数。在NTU和UoN家禽营养学家的支持下，将设计一套营养试验，并在英国（Midlothian）和美国（亚拉巴马）的Aviagen研究家禽试验设施中进行。组织样本和目标2中有关肠道健康、鸟类反应和消化能力的数据将与Aviagen遗传学家共享，以识别单核苷酸多态性等位基因和候选基因，并将其与有利性状联系起来。这种多学科的方法，在行业合作伙伴的科学家扩展团队的深入参与下，是雄心勃勃的，但将加快项目成果的实际应用速度，并增加项目的广度。然而，包括遗传成分并不是必不可少的：没有这一要素对知识的贡献仍然很大。有一些途径，可以有效地选择由学生的博士项目的目标3。

Although poultry are the least environmentally impactful terrestrial meat, poultry breeding companies must now urgently consider the traits required for the rapidly changing food production environment. Ability of poultry to adapt their gastro-intestinal tract to non-soya, low carbon protein sources, dietary inclusion of bio-based co-products, and to maintain gut health during temperature fluctuations are traits not considered currently in breeding plans. Global breeding company, Aviagen, have world leading advanced genetic selection techniques allowing them to deliver consistent genetic improvement to the poultry industry. The overarching aims of this project are to draw on NTU/UoN expertise in emerging feed materials and combine it with the Aviagen genetic assessment programmes to determine some of the mechanisms underpinning response of poultry to changing diet and environmental conditions. The will allow the genes associated with traits needed for efficiency and resilience in a rapidly changing future may be identified. The project will also a develop holistic system for assessing gut health in poultry, which is currently lacking as existing approaches are extremely slow and expensive to undertake and often only consider one element of gut health. Aviagen will provide access to samples from a diverse range of genetic lines and environmental conditions for analysis at NTU and UoN. Currently, high-field Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) sensing technologies are routinely used for metabolomics investigations in humans patients but their prohibitive size and cost suggest a role for low-field (60 MHz) benchtop instruments, where NTU has internationally sought expertise in this field through Prof Philippe WilsonObjective 1 of the project is to establish a holistic measure of gut health. Compact, low-field NMR appears a likely candidate for developing a novel approach, but NTU and Aviagen expertise in gut health means a number of other options that can be evaluated alongside NMR so a rapid, cost effective measure can be developed.Objective 2 is to determine response of differing genetic lines of meat poultry to emergent feed materials in both standard and hot environments. Diets meeting the nutrient requirements of the strain of bird, but formulated using novel feed ingredients likely to create greater challenge to gut health and digestive efficiency would be fed to two genetic lines in two environments. Parameters measured would include classical measures of production efficiency and intestinal architecture alongside the novel parameters developed through the first objective. A suite of nutrition trials will be designed with support from NTU and UoN poultry nutritionists and conducted in the Aviagen research poultry trial facilities in both UK (Midlothian) and USA (Alabama).Tissue samples and data on gut health, bird response and digestive capacity from objective 2 will be shared with Aviagen geneticists in order to identify and relate Single Nucleotide Polymorphism alleles and candidate genes to favourable traits. Such a multidisciplinary approach, with deep involvement of an extended team of scientists based at the industry partner is ambitious, but will accelerate the rate of practical application of the project findings, and increase project breadth. However, inclusion of a genetic component is not essential: the contribution to knowledge without this element remains substantial. There are a number of avenues that could be usefully chosen by the student for Objective 3 of the PhD project.