High altitude hypoxia as a factor that promotes tibial growth plate development in broiler chickens

Abstract

Tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) is one of the most common problems in the poultry industry and leads to lameness by affecting the proximal growth plate of the tibia. However, due to the unique environmental and geographical conditions of Tibet, no case of TD has been reported in Tibetan chickens (TBCs). The present study was designed to investigate the effect of high altitude hypoxia on blood parameters and tibial growth plate development in chickens using the complete blood count, morphology, and histological examination. The results of this study showed an undesirable impact on the overall performance, body weight, and mortality of Arbor Acres chickens (AACs) exposed to a high altitude hypoxic environment. However, AACs raised under hypoxic conditions showed an elevated number of red blood cells (RBCs) and an increase in hemoglobin and hematocrit values on day 14 compared to the hypobaric normoxia group. Notably, the morphology and histology analyses showed that the size of tibial growth plates in AACs was enlarged and that the blood vessel density was also higher after exposure to the hypoxic environment for 14 days, while no such change was observed in TBCs. Altogether, our results revealed that the hypoxic environment has a potentially new role in increasing the blood vessel density of proximal tibial growth plates to strengthen and enhance the size of the growth plates, which may provide new insights for the therapeutic manipulation of hypoxia in poultry TD.

The Investigation of the Relationship Between HSP-27 Release and Oxidative DNA Damage in Broiler Chickens with Tibial Dyschondroplasia by Using Histopathological and Immunohistochemical Methods

“…In recent years, increasing the level of HSP in order to stimulate the defense mechanisms was considered as a method in the treatment of diseases of the nervous sytem (Kampinga & Bergink, 2016), cardiovascular system (Hu et al, 2017) or cancer (Chatterjee & Burns, 2017), and many studies were conducted on this topic. At the same time, there are studies currently suggesting the idea that increasing the release of HSPs to provide revascularization and reduce oxidative stress in the treatment of TD lesions would be beneficial (Huang et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2018Mehmood et al, 2018).In accordance with the results of the present study, we agree with other researchers that HSPs proteins should not be overlooked in the development of new methods for the prevention or treatment of TD, which leads to significant economic loss regarding poultry.…”

Healing of Growth Plate Cartilage by Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1α Inhibitor Apigenin on Thiram Induced Tibial Dyschondroplasia

“…HIF-1α regulates hypoxic responses and angiogenesis which are necessary for chondrocyte development (Araldi and Schipani, 2010). Role of hypoxia and HIF-1α has been investigated in TD incidence (Herzog et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2017a).…”

Transcriptome-based screening of intracellular pathways and angiogenesis related genes at different stages of thiram induced tibial lesions in broiler chickens

“…The death of blood vessels membrane is called angionecrosis, which reduces angiogenesis in broilers and causes TD [3]. It has been reported that high level of blood vessels formation increase the size of the growth plate and reduce the chance of TD [4]. Thiram is a pesticide that is commonly used in agriculture.…”

“…These findings raise the possibility that immune responses of chicken erythrocytes contribute to prevent and treat TD. Whereas, the angionecrosis has been proved to be the cause of thiram induced TD and most of the literature confirms the detrimental effects of angiogenesis [2][3][4]. However, the mechanisms underlying the angionecrosis leading to TD has not been well studied.…”