Integrated Bulk and Single-Nucleus Transcriptomics Characterizes the Developmental and Regional Specialization of Chicken Abdominal Fat-Associated Tissue
TL;DR
The results show that abdominal fat development involves both adipose-related processes and the surrounding cellular environment, and that embryonic tissues were enriched for genes related to tissue growth and structure, whereas postnatal tissues showed stronger immune- and environmental-response signals.
Abstract
Simple Summary Excessive abdominal fat reduces feed efficiency and edible carcass yield in chickens, but fat-associated tissues at different anatomical sites do not necessarily develop in the same way. We analyzed 93 tissue samples collected from 15 anatomical regions at embryonic day 16 and 16 regions at 2 weeks after hatching in six Xinghua chickens, together with exploratory single-nucleus RNA sequencing of the abdominal region. Developmental stage accounted for much of the gene-expression variation: embryonic tissues were enriched for genes related to tissue growth and structure, whereas postnatal tissues showed stronger immune- and environmental-response signals. Differences among anatomical regions were also evident within each stage. In the abdominal region, stage-dependent expression patterns were represented in several cell populations, including fat-related, stromal, epithelial, vascular, neural-associated, and immune cells. Our results show that abdominal fat development involves both adipose-related processes and the surrounding cellular environment.