SRA

Domesticated turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are highly sensitive to the hepatotoxic and immunotoxic effects of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), while Eastern wild turkeys (M. gallopavo silvestris) appear more resistant. When maternally transferred into the egg or introduced experimentally, embryonic exposure to AFB1 in poultry can negatively affect development, hatchability, and immune functions after hatch. In this study, in ovo AFB1 exposure and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) were utilized to compare domesticated and wild turkey responses to AFB1. Embryonated domesticated and wild turkey eggs were randomly placed into 4 groups (aflatoxin B1 1 day exposure (A1), control 1 day exposure (C1), aflatoxin B1 5 day exposure (A5), control 5 day exposure (C5)). For each embryo, AFB1 or control solution were injected into the air sac, then liver and spleen samples were collected after 1 day or 5 days of exposure. Individual indexed libraries were constructed using total RNA from both domesticated turkey (N=48) and wild turkey (N=30) tissues. Paired-end reads were produced on the Illumina HiSeq 2000 in two sequencing runs. Corrected reads were mapped to a turkey gene set and used for differential expression analysis and pathway analysis to determine the effects of AFB1, exposure time, and turkey type. Transcriptome analysis illustrated differences between domesticated and wild turkeys and identified potential targets to improve poultry resistance to AFB1.