Protein accumulations affect broiler heart pump function

Canadian researchers have identified the damaged proteins that can cause dilated cardiomyopathy and heart pump failure in fast-growing broilers.

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David Tadevosian I shutterstock.com
David Tadevosian I shutterstock.com

Canadian researchers have identified the damaged proteins that can cause dilated cardiomyopathy and heart pump failure in fast-growing broilers.

Broiler chickens have been genetically bred to grow quickly. This quick growth, an asset to farmers who want to bring birds to market faster, has unfortunately resulted in a higher incidence in heart disease in broilers, supporters of slow-growth chickens say. Worldwide, heart failure issues account for more than $1 billion in economic losses for the broiler industry each year.

To learn more about the cause of heart issues in broilers, researchers at the University of Sasketchewan compared broilers to slow-growing counterparts and Leghorn chickens, two types of poultry with a lower risk of heart failure.

“I couldn't see obvious changes that could explain heart pump failure under the microscope, so I thought, maybe it's some more subtle problem with the heart muscle proteins themselves that is not apparent on light microscopy. When we looked at that using infrared micro-spectroscopy, it was fairly immediately obvious,” University of Sasketchewan researcher Andrew Olkowski said in a statement.

Infrared micro-spectroscopy is a type of imaging that uses transmitted infrared wavelengths of light. Using this technique, the scientists were able to identify conformational changes that either damaged or caused proteins to become misfolded. These proteins accumulate, resulting in heart failure.

“The findings indicate that dilated cardiomyopathy and heart pump failure in fast-growing broiler chickens are a result of a complex metabolic syndrome involving multiple catabolic pathways. Our data indicate that a good deal of dilated cardiomyopathy pathophysiology in chickens selected for rapid growth is associated with conformational changes of cardiac proteins, and pathological changes indicative of accumulation of misfolded and aggregated proteins in the affected cardiomyocytes,” the researchers wrote in a study published in Avian Pathology.

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