Training and diet are hypothesized to directly stimulate key molecular pathways that mediate animal performance, and flight-training, dietary fats, and dietary antioxidants are likely important in modulating molecular metabolism in migratory birds. This study experimentally investigated how long-distance flight-training as well as diet composition, affected the expression of key metabolic genes in the pectoralis muscle and the liver of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris, N=95). Starlings were fed diets composed of either a high or low polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA; 18:2n-6) and supplemented with or without a water-soluble antioxidant, and half of these birds were flight-trained in a wind-tunnel while the rest were untrained. We measured the expression of 7 (liver) or 10 (pectoralis) key metabolic genes in flight-trained and untrained birds. Fifty percent of genes involved in mitochondrial metabolism and fat utilization were upregulated by flight-training in the pectoralis (P
DeMoranville, K. J., Carter, W. A., Pierce, B. J., & McWilliams, S. R. (2020). Flight training in a migratory bird drives metabolic gene expression in the flight muscle but not liver, and dietary fat quality influences select genes. American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology, 319(6), R637-R652. Doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00163.2020
Online ahead of print Sept 23, 2020.