Jingya Li , Mengyue Chen

Animal Science Research Center, Cuixi Academy of Biotechnology, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
Author    Correspondence author
Animal Molecular Breeding, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/amb.2025.15.0007
Received: 01 Feb., 2025    Accepted: 05 May, 2025    Published: 20 May, 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Li J.Y., and Chen M.Y., 2025, Epigenetic regulation of growth and feather development in ducks, Animal Molecular Breeding, 15(2): 60-71 (doi: 10.5376/amb.2025.15.0007)

 

Duck is an important economic poultry, and its growth rate and feather development are directly related to meat and poultry yield and feather quality. This study reviews the latest progress in recent years on epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modification and non-coding RNA during duck growth and feather development. Literature shows that DNA methylation plays an important regulatory role in the muscle growth and metabolism of duck embryos, and environmental factors such as temperature and nutrition can affect the growth performance of ducks by changing the methylation state. In terms of feather development, epigenetic mechanisms mediate gene expression reprogramming during the transition from primary down feather to mature feathers, and miRNA and lncRNA are involved in complex regulatory networks of feather follicle formation and feather growth cycle. In summary, duck growth and feather development are regulated by multi-level epigenetic regulation, including DNA methylation remodeling development-related gene expression, histone modifications to alter chromatin status, and non-coding RNA-mediated post-transcriptional regulation. A deep understanding of these mechanisms helps to reveal the molecular basis of differences in duck growth and feather morphology, and provides new ideas for improving poultry breeding and production performance.

Duck feather development; DNA methylation; Histone modification; Non-coding RNA; Epigenetic regulation