Dietary Supplementation of Arginine Promote Testicular Development in Muscovy Ducks Based on Transcriptome Analysis

ABSTRACT The poor reproductive performance of male ducks hinders the development of the Muscovy duck industry. Adding arginine to the feed plays a crucial role in the testicular development and improvement of reproductive performance in Muscovy ducks, but there is limited research on the biochemical metabolism, gene expression changes, and other mechanisms involved. In this study, 60 male Muscovy ducks were randomly divided into two groups. One group was fed a basal diet (control group), and the other was fed a basal diet supplemented with 0.4% arginine (experimental group). The results showed that the reproductive cells, reproductive hormone levels, and antioxidant levels in the test group of Muscovy ducks were significantly higher than those in the control group. Through transcriptome sequencing analysis, this study identified a total of 1268 differentially expressed genes, including 740 genes that were significantly upregulated and 528 genes that were significantly downregulated. The expression of genes such as KIF13A, AFF4, DSCC1, and related pathways had a significant impact on the testicular development of Muscovy ducks. These findings provide an important basis for using arginine supplementation in feed to enhance the reproductive performance of Muscovy ducks.