Poster 2: Cell and Tissue Studies

Ziqing Wang, Paul Khondowe, Erin Brannick, Behnam Abasht

University of Delaware

The goal of this study is to use spatial transcriptomics to characterize expression profile particular to different cell types and their potential interactions at early stage of Wooden Breast myopathy (WB). Four randomly sampled broiler chickens were euthanized at 23 days post-hatch, and a 1 cm3 sample was dissected from the cranial part of the right pectoralis major muscle. These samples were subsequently processed with Visium Spatial Gene Expression kits (10X Genomics) followed by high-resolution imaging and sequencing on the Illumina Nextseq 2000 system. WB classification was based on histopathologic features identified by an ACVP certified veterinary anatomic pathologist. Obtained sequence reads were aligned to the chicken reference genome (Galgal6), mapped to histological images and analyzed for clustering as well as differential expression. Unsupervised K-means clustering differentiated histological features and their expression pattern including lipid laden macrophages (LLM), myositis and vasculature. Particularly, LLM exhibited reprogramming of lipid metabolism with increased expression of lipid transporters and genes in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors pathway, possibly through CD36 molecule mediated signaling. Moreover, overexpression of fatty acid binding protein 5 could enhance fatty acid uptake in adjacent veins. In myositis regions, increased cathepsins expression in lysosome may play a role in muscle homeostasis and repair.

Research Area: Muscle