Nutrition in early life has a long-term influence on later health. In order to the explore effects of in ovo feeding (IOF) of vitamin C on splenic development, splenic metabolism and apoptosis were detected in embryo, adult chickens and in vitro. A total of 360 fertile eggs were selected and randomly assigned to control (CON) and vitamin C (VC) groups which were injected with saline and vitamin C on embryonic day 11, respectively. Functional enrichment of differentially expressed genes by transcriptome on embryonic day 19 suggested that purine nucleotide metabolism might be a potential pathway for the IOF of vitamin C to regulate spleen development. Additionally, the IOF of vitamin C significantly increased splenic vitamin C content on post-hatch day 21. Meanwhile, the splenic expression of adenosine deaminase, serine/threonine kinase 1 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen was down-regulated, whereas the expression of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase 9 was up-regulated in the VC group. On post-hatch day 42, the IOF of vitamin C significantly down-regulated the splenic expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 and increased the mRNA level of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase 9. The IOF of vitamin C could regulate the expression of genes related to adenylate metabolism and increased the apoptosis rate in vitro, which is consistent with the result in vivo. In conclusion, the IOF of vitamin C regulated splenic development and maturation by affecting purine nucleotide metabolism pathway and promoting apoptosis.

中文翻译：

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卵内饲喂维生素 C 通过嘌呤核苷酸代谢和诱导肉鸡细胞凋亡来调节脾脏发育

生命早期的营养对以后的健康有长期的影响。为了探索效果卵内在胚胎、成年鸡和体外. 总共选择了 360 个受精卵，并随机分配到对照组（CON）和维生素 C（VC）组，分别在胚胎第 11 天注射盐水和维生素 C。在胚胎第 19 天通过转录组对差异表达基因的功能富集表明，嘌呤核苷酸代谢可能是维生素 C 的 IOF 调节脾脏发育的潜在途径。此外，在孵化后第 21 天，维生素 C 的 IOF 显着增加脾脏维生素 C 含量。同时，脾脏腺苷脱氨酶、丝氨酸/苏氨酸激酶 1 和增殖细胞核抗原的表达下​​调，而半胱氨酰天冬氨酸的表达VC组特异性蛋白酶9上调。在孵化后第 42 天，体外，与结果一致体内. 总之，维生素C的IOF通过影响嘌呤核苷酸代谢途径和促进细胞凋亡来调节脾脏的发育和成熟。