Integrated transcriptome and proteome analysis reveals potential mechanisms for differential abdominal fat deposition between divergently selected chicken lines.

Genetic selection for meat production performance of broilers concomitantly causes excessive abdominal fat deposition, accompanied by several adverse effects, such as the reduction of feed conversion efficiency and reproduction performance. Our previous studies have identified important genes regulating chicken fat deposition, using the Northeast Agricultural University broiler lines divergently selected for abdominal fat content (NEAUHLF) as an animal model. However, the molecular mechanism underlying fat deposition differences between fat and lean broilers remains largely unknown. Here, we integrated the transcriptome (RNA-Seq) and quantitative proteome (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation, iTRAQ) profiling analyses on abdominal fat tissues from NEAUHLF chicken lines. Differentially expressed genes (2167 DEGs, corrected p-value < 0.01) and differentially abundant proteins (199 DAPs, corrected p-value < 0.05) were identified in lean line compared to fat line. Down-regulated DEGs and DAPs mainly enriched in pathways related to fatty acid metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, and PPAR signaling, and interestingly, up-regulated DEGs and DAPs enriched both in lysosome pathway. Moreover, numerous key DEGs and DAPs involved in long-chain fatty acid uptake, in situ lipogenesis (fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis), and lipid droplet accumulation were discovered after integrated transcriptome and proteome analysis. SIGNIFICANCE: Excessive abdominal fat deposition critically affects the health of broilers and causes economic loss to broiler producers, but the molecular mechanism of abdominal fat deposition is still unclear in chicken. We identified key DEGs/DAPs and potential pathways through an integration of chicken abdominal fat tissues transcriptome and proteome analyses. Our findings will facilitate a better revealing the mechanism and provide a novel insight into abdominal fat content discrepancy between the fat and lean chicken lines.