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

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 Wilson

Objective 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.