Analysis of gene expression profiles to identify key genes involved in the lipogenesis pathway in meat chickens

The presence of fat in the carcasses of broilers is one of the main challenges in the poultry industry. Hepatic lipogenesis is an important step related to lipid metabolism in broilers that is controlled by a set of genes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the gene expression profile to identify genes that are effective in the lipogenesis pathway. In the first, the gene expression profiles related to three tissues of the liver, breast, and abdominal fat of broilers fed with two diets containing high starch, low fiber, low fat (LF), and low starch, high fiber, high fat (HF) were downloaded from GEO database. In the next step gene expression analysis related to the three tissue mentioned was performed by GEO2R web-based software. The study of biological pathways was performed by the WebGestalt tool and the gene network was reconstructed by Cytoscape software.  The analysis of the results showed that there was no significant difference in the expression profile due to feeding with two different diets in the breast muscle tissue and abdominal fat, but 975 genes were significantly different in the liver tissue. Based on a network and biological analysis, 10 genes with the highest degree were involved in the biological activities of fatty acid biosynthesis, acyl-coenzyme A biosynthesis, fatty acid metabolism, and fatty acid degradation. Therefore, these genes can be important as key genes controlling hepatic lipogenesis. Therefore, based on our findings, which are the result of the interaction between nutrition and the genome, we can suggest diets for breeding poultry, which can be used as a suitable diet for the production of low-fat meat.