Abstract
AbstractChicken eggs are one of the most consumed foods worldwide. However, the practice of chicken culling in the poultry industry involves unnecessary animal suffering and finding a way to put an end to this has become a societal priority. One approach that has been propagated as acceptable is based on the selection of female eggs early in the incubation process and the devitalization of the male eggs.It is with this objective in mind that we searched for a biomarker for early gender screening in eggs. Applying an untargeted mass spectrometry approach, we profiled allantoic fluid of different day-old eggs and identified the feature 3-[(2-aminoethyl)sulfanyl]butanoic acid (ASBA) as a strong biomarker forin-ovogender prediction for day-9 old embryos. After validation using LC-APCI-MRM with an internal standard, we found ASBA can predict the female gender with a sensitivity and specificity well above 95% in our experiments.HighlightsDiscovery of a biomarker of chicken embryo gender in allantoic fluid from eggsDay 9 after laying was determined as optimum for sex prediction and animal welfare3-[(2-aminoethyl)sulfanyl]butanoic acid was identified using mass spectrometryThe biomarker was validated on large cohorts of different chicken speciesGraphical abstract
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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