Editorial: Interplay of nutrition and genomics: Potential for improving performance and health of poultry

Abstract

Nutrigenomics is one of the most rapidly developing scientific fields that holds great promise for improving the health and performance of food-producing animals. Nutrigenomics begins a new era of working with nutrition and genetics, and gives us an insight into how nutrients interfere with an organism's genetics and the resulting phenotypic response. It focuses on elucidating the effect of dietary nutrients on expression patterns of different genes and epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications The use of nutrients and nutraceuticals in poultry diets can improve expression of different genes related to immunity, metabolism, health, growth and antioxidant capacity Nutritional programming during prenatal and postnatal life may have long-lasting consequences on the growth and health of birds and animals. Particularly during prenatal life, nutrients not only influence the developing embryo, but also affect the primary germ cells responsible for the next generation Therefore, exploring the effect of nutrients on genomic functions holds great promise to enhance the production performance and health of food animals.

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