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1. Intestinal Effects of Brewers’ Spent Grain Extract In Ovo (Gallus gallus)—A Pilot Study

   https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15030303  

   Huang, Melissa Y; Smieska, Louisa M; Tako, Elad (February 2025, Animals)

   Upcycling brewers’ spent grain (BSG) into poultry feed needs to be optimized. Since broiler chickens inefficiently digest fiber, we created a water-soluble BSG extract (BSGE) to explore this fraction’s potential nutritional benefits. We utilized intra-amniotic administration (in ovo) to target the gastrointestinal tract of broiler embryos. BSGE increased villus surface area and goblet cell quantity and size, implying improved duodenal development. The extract also changed cecal Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Clostridium abundances. Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy, along with zinc and iron transporter relative expression, did not reveal significant changes by BSGE. These findings highlight the potential for BSGE to be a functional feed component, underscoring the potential value of upcycling this byproduct. This pilot study supports future work exploring the impact of BSGE within feed and its effects over long-term consumption. 

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2. Patterns of early embryogenesis and growth in the olfactory system of chick ( Gallus gallus domesticus ) based on iodine‐enhanced micro‐computed tomography

   https://doi.org/10.1002/dvdy.746  

   Hogan, Aneila_V C; Cerio, Donald G; Bever, Gabriel S (September 2024, Developmental Dynamics)

   Abstract BackgroundThe vertebrate olfactory system entails a complex set of neural/support structures that bridge morphogenetic regions. The developmental mechanisms coordinating this bridge remain unclear, even for model organisms such as chick,Gallus gallus. Here, we combine previous growth data on the chick olfactory apparatus with new samples targeting its early embryogenesis. The purpose is to illuminate how early developmental dynamics integrate with scaling relationships to produce adult form and, potentially, evolutionary patterns. Olfactory structures, including epithelium, turbinate, nerve, and olfactory bulb, are considered in the context of neighboring nasal and brain structures. ResultsAxonal outgrowth from the olfactory epithelium, which eventually connects receptor neurons with the brain, begins earlier than previously established. This dynamic marks the beginning of a complex pattern of early differential growth wherein the olfactory bulbs scale with positive allometry relative to both brain volume and turbinate area, which in turn scale isometrically with one another. ConclusionsThe mechanisms driving observed patterns of organogenesis and growth remain unclear awaiting experimental evidence. We discuss competing hypotheses, including the possibility that broad‐based isometry of olfactory components reflects constraints imposed by high levels of functional/structural integration. Such integration would include the frontonasal prominence having a strong influence on telencephalic patterning. 

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3. Whole genome phylogeny of Gallus: introgression and data-type effects

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-020-00194-w  

   Tiley, George P.; Pandey, Akanksha; Kimball, Rebecca T.; Braun, Edward L.; Burleigh, J. Gordon (December 2020, Avian Research)
4. Connecting gut microbiomes and short chain fatty acids with the serotonergic system and behavior in Gallus gallus and other avian species

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.1035538  

   Jadhav, Vidya V.; Han, Jian; Fasina, Yewande; Harrison, Scott H. (November 2022, Frontiers in Physiology)

   Monika Proszkowiec-Weglarz, Agricultural Research (Ed.)

   The chicken gastrointestinal tract has a diverse microbial community. There is increasing evidence for how this gut microbiome affects specific molecular pathways and the overall physiology, nervous system and behavior of the chicken host organism due to a growing number of studies investigating conditions such as host diet, antibiotics, probiotics, and germ-free and germ-reduced models. Systems-level investigations have revealed a network of microbiome-related interactions between the gut and state of health and behavior in chickens and other animals. While some microbial symbionts are crucial for maintaining stability and normal host physiology, there can also be dysbiosis, disruptions to nutrient flow, and other outcomes of dysregulation and disease. Likewise, alteration of the gut microbiome is found for chickens exhibiting differences in feather pecking (FP) behavior and this alteration is suspected to be responsible for behavioral change. In chickens and other organisms, serotonin is a chief neuromodulator that links gut microbes to the host brain as microbes modulate the serotonin secreted by the host’s own intestinal enterochromaffin cells which can stimulate the central nervous system via the vagus nerve. A substantial part of the serotonergic network is conserved across birds and mammals. Broader investigations of multiple species and subsequent cross-comparisons may help to explore general functionality of this ancient system and its increasingly apparent central role in the gut-brain axis of vertebrates. Dysfunctional behavioral phenotypes from the serotonergic system moreover occur in both birds and mammals with, for example, FP in chickens and depression in humans. Recent studies of the intestine as a major site of serotonin synthesis have been identifying routes by which gut microbial metabolites regulate the chicken serotonergic system. This review in particular highlights the influence of gut microbial metabolite short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) on the serotonergic system. The role of SCFAs in physiological and brain disorders may be considerable because of their ability to cross intestinal as well as the blood-brain barriers, leading to influences on the serotonergic system via binding to receptors and epigenetic modulations. Examinations of these mechanisms may translate into a more general understanding of serotonergic system development within chickens and other avians. 

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5. Differential growth of the adductor muscles, eyeball, and brain in the chick Gallus gallus with comments on the fossil record of stem‐group birds

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.21622  

   Cerio, Donald G.; Llera Martín, Catherine J.; Hogan, Aneila V. C.; Balanoff, Amy M.; Watanabe, Akinobu; Bever, Gabriel S. (July 2023, Journal of Morphology)

   Abstract The avian head is unique among living reptiles in its combination of relatively large brain and eyes, coupled with relatively small adductor jaw muscles. These derived proportions lend themselves to a trade‐off hypothesis, wherein adductor size was reduced over evolutionary time as a means (or as a consequence) of neurosensory expansion. In this study, we examine this evolutionary hypothesis through the lens of development by describing the jaw‐adductor anatomy of developing chickens,Gallus gallus, and comparing the volumetric expansion of these developing muscles with growth trajectories of the brain and eye. Under the trade‐off hypothesis, we predicted that the jaw muscles would grow with negative allometry relative to brain and eyes, and that osteological signatures of a relatively large adductor system, as found in most nonavian dinosaurs, would be differentially expressed in younger chicks. Results did not meet these expectations, at least not generally, with muscle growth exhibiting positive allometry relative to that of brain and eye. We propose three, nonmutually exclusive explanations: (1) these systems do not compete for space, (2) these systems competed for space in the evolutionary past, and growth of the jaw muscles was truncated early in development (paedomorphosis), and (3) trade‐offs in developmental investment in these systems are limited temporally to the perinatal period. These explanations are considered in light of the fossil record, and most notably the skull of the stem birdIchthyornis, which exhibits an interesting combination of plesiomorphically large adductor chamber and apomorphically large brain. 

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