Figures & data
Figure 1. Body weights by gender and age of broilers. Each age group represents 4 females and 5 males except 5 wk, which has 4 females and 4 males (data = mean ± SEM). Age similarly increased body weights of male and female broiler chickens (P value < 0.05).
Figure 2. Summary of differentially expressed (DE) transcripts (q < 0.07) in chicken adipose tissue. Number of differentially expressed transcripts for female and male are across all ages. P value cutoffs for 3 to 6 wk, 4 to 6 wk, 3 to 4 wk, female, and male are 6.1E–4, 4.8E–4, 8.0E–5, 1.9E–3, and 1.9E–3 respectively.
Table 1. Main themes and enrichment scoresa from DAVIDb of clusters of GO Biological Process categories for up and downregulated genes (q < 0.07) in adipose tissue
Table 2. Summary of changes in adipose tissue with age displaying pathway themes,a pathways,b and number of genesc associated
Table 3. Immune related and other genes in chicken adipose tissue that were influenced by age. Log2 fold changes are a comparison of quantitative real-time PCR expression values from different ages
Figure 3. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) validation of microarray data on a subset of genes in adipose tissue. Gene expression, log2-fold changes, measured by microarray compared with qPCR. Genes were selected based on relevant age related changes in the microarray analysis. Representative Affymetrix probe sets were chosen by the best alignment of the Affymetrix probe set target sequence to the Taqman Gene Expression Assay context sequence. All genes had a difference (P < 0.05, factorial ANOVA) in qPCR expression between age groups. Microarray changes were statistically significant.
Table 4. Taqman primers