
95% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Avian Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1558201
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate-Smart Livestock Production: Strategies for Enhanced Sustainability and Resilience View all 7 articles
The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Water scarcity and rising global temperatures are two of the greatest current and future threats to poultry sustainability. Therefore, selection for water efficiency (WE) and heat resilience are of vital importance. Additionally, intestinal integrity is of critical importance under challenging conditions to maintain nutrient absorption and therefore, growth and performance of broilers. Here, we examined the effect of chronic cyclic heat stress (HS) on the ileal expression profile of tight-junction, gapjunction, adherens, and desmosome genes in the 4 th generation of divergently selected low (LWE)and high water efficient (HWE)-chicken lines. LWE birds exhibited higher levels of gut permeability, regardless of temperature, as measured by fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran (FITC-D). Among the claudins (CLDN), Cldn1 showed greater expression in the HWE as compared to LWE, regardless of temperature. Cldn5, -16, -20, and -34 genes were all greater in LWE and lower in HWE during HS. Conversely, Cldn25 was decreased in LWE but increased HWE under HS. Cldn4 was increased in the HWE line and decreased by HS. Cingulin (Cgn) gene expression was lower in HWE as compared to LWE and lower in HS as compared to thermoneutral (TN) condition. Gap junction protein α1 (Gja1) and desmoglein 4 (Dsg4) were greater in the HWE as compared to the LWE. Cadherin 1 (Cdh1) gene expression was greatest in the HWE in TN conditions and lowest in HWE under HS, whereas catenin α2 (Ctnna2) and desmocollin 1 (Dsc1) were highest in HWE during HS compared to all other groups. This differential expression of key genes associated with intestinal barrier integrity likely contributes to the water efficiency phenotype and the response of these birds to HS.
Keywords: broiler, Heat stress, water efficiency, Gut integrity, Gene Expression
Received: 09 Jan 2025; Accepted: 18 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Greene, Roach, Cuadrado, Orlowski and Dridi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Sami Dridi, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 72701, Arkansas, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Research integrity at Frontiers
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.