Figure 5.

Gene expression profiles for genes significantly affected by age in growing feathers of parental-control, non-vitiligo expressing Brown line chickens. Growing feather samples were taken from Brown line chickens beginning at 1-day post-hatch and continuing twice a week for 113 days. cDNA from samples collected from 8 to 61 days of age were analyzed for relative gene expression of CTLA4, IL10 and CXCL8. Relative gene expression was determined by the efficiency-calibrated ΔΔCt method and is expressed as fold change relative to the calibrator sample. Gene expression profiles were obtained for individual chickens, using individual-specific day 29 samples as calibrators and 28S as a reference gene. Data were aligned and averaged by age (days). The overall effect of time was determined using a mixed effects regression model setting time and individual bird as a fixed and random effect respectively. When a significant time effect was found, post-hoc multiple means comparisons were made against the 8 d samples using the Tukey-Kramer p-value adjustment. Differences were considered significant at P < 0.05. Data are plotted as mean ± SEM; n = 5 chickens per time point.