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Low environmental temperatures are among the most challenging stressors in poultry industries. Although landmark studies using acute severe cold exposure have been conducted, still the molecular mechanisms underlying cold-stress responses in birds are not completely defined. In the present study we determine the effect of chronic mild cold conditioning (CMCC) on growth performances and on the expression of key metabolic-related genes in three metabolically important tissues: brain (main site for feed intake control), liver (main site for lipogenesis) and muscle (main site for thermogenesis).80 one-day old male broiler chicks were divided into two weight-matched groups and maintained in two different temperature floor pen rooms (40 birds/room). The temperature of control room was 32°C, while the cold room temperature started at 26.7°C and gradually reduced every day (1°C/day) to reach 19.7°C at the seventh day of the experiment. At day 7, growth performances were recorded (from all birds) and blood samples and tissues were collected (n = 10). The rest of birds were maintained at the same standard environmental condition for two more weeks and growth performances were measured.Although feed intake remained unchanged, body weight gain was significantly increased in CMCC compared to the control chicks resulting in a significant low feed conversion ratio (FCR). Circulating cholesterol and creatine kinase levels were higher in CMCC chicks compared to the control group (P

As a result of the genetic selection of broiler (meat-type breeders) chickens for enhanced growth rate and lower feed conversion ratio, it has become necessary to restrict feed intake. When broilers are fed ad libitum, they would become obese and suffer from several health-related problems. A vital adaptation to starvation is autophagy, a self-eating mechanism for recycling cellular constituents. The autophagy pathway has witnessed dramatic growth in the last few years and extensively studied in yeast and mammals however, there is a paucity of information in avian (non-mammalian) species. Here we characterized several genes involved in autophagosome initiation and elongation in Red Jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) and Japanese quail (coturnix coturnix Japonica). Both complexes are ubiquitously expressed in chicken and quail tissues (liver, leg and breast muscle, brain, gizzard, intestine, heart, lung, kidney, adipose tissue, ovary and testis). Alignment analysis showed high similarity (50.7 to 91.5%) between chicken autophagy-related genes and their mammalian orthologs. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the evolutionary relationship between autophagy genes is consistent with the consensus view of vertebrate evolution. Interestingly, the expression of autophagy-related genes is tissue- and gender-dependent. Furthermore, using two experimental male quail lines divergently selected over 40 generations for low (resistant, R) or high (sensitive, S) stress response, we found that the expression of most studied genes are higher in R compared to S line. Together our results indicate that the autophagy pathway is a key molecular signature exhibited gender specific differences and likely plays an important role in response to stress in avian species.