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student projects

Reducing fat accretion in poultry to improve profitability


undergraduate project aishlin Lee, animal sciences Kichoon Lee, animal sciences, advisor

Worldwide poultry consumption has been increasing steadily for many years. At the same time, the ratio of fat to muscle in poultry has increased. This means that poultry feed has been wasted to produce a product that is of lesser economic value, as the muscle is what the farmers sell. Reducing the amount of fat in poultry goes hand in hand with improved feed efficiency, and thus saves the farmer money. Feed is the main input cost of producing meat, and it is getting more and more expensive as the price of corn rises. Reducing the amount of feed that is stored as fat in the birds means greater profitability in producing the birds. This project aimed to find a nutritional element that could reduce fat accretion in poultry. Identifying such dietary factors has potential economic significance and a potential link to fat accretion in humans as well. Recent studies have shown that an increase in selenium concentration a mineral that is essential to health but is only required in small amounts is associated with an increase in the number of fat cells in cell culture. The role of selenium

in fat cell development had not previously been studied in chickens. The projects first objective was to determine if increased selenium concentration causes an increase in fat cell numbers, as well as an increase in several different fat cell differentiation markers in a cell culture study. The second objective was to determine if an increase in selenium supplementation in poultry feed would be associated with an increase in fat pad weight. The cell culture study found that as selenium concentration increases, so does the number of fat cells. In addition, greater selenium concentration causes an increase in the number of cells that differentiate between the precursors to fat cells and fat cells. The feed manipulation study found that greater selenium supplementation in feed causes an increase in fat pad weight compared to a control level of supplementation. This research could improve understanding of how to control specific nutritional elements to help reduce fat accretion in chickens, and thus improve their value to farmers. This data will be used to design further studies on seleniums effect on fat accretion in poultry species. These future studies may include investigations into seleniums effect on cell cycle exit and the effect selenium has on glucose uptake.

Reducing the amount of feed that is stored as fat in the birds means greater profitability in producing the birds.

aishlin Lee

www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/seeds SEEDS: The OARDC Research Enhancement Competitive Grants Program

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