Exogenous administration of chronic corticosterone affects hepatic cholesterol metabolism in broiler chickens showing long or short tonic immobility

Tonic immobility (TI) is an innate characteristic of animals related to fear or stress response. Animals can be classified into long TI (LTI) and short TI (STI) phenotypes based on TI test duration. In this study, effect of TI phenotype, chronic corticosterone administration (CORT), and their interaction on cholesterol metabolism in liver was evaluated in broilers. LTI broilers showed higher level of cholesterol in liver compared to STI chickens (p < 0.05), and CORT significantly increased hepatic cholesterol content (p < 0.01). Real-time PCR results showed that both TI and CORT potentially altered ABCA1 and CYP7A1 gene expressions (0.05 < p < 0.1), while there was no significant interaction of CORT and TI on both gene expressions. CORT treatment significantly increased the level of SREBP2 (p = 0.00), LDLR (p < 0.05), GR (p < 0.05) and 11β-HSD2 (p < 0.05) protein abundance in liver. However, TI phenotype only affected hepatic HMGCR protein expression, and LTI broilers showed higher level of HMGCR protein expression in liver than STI (p < 0.05). These results indicate that chronic CORT administration causes hepatic cholesterol accumulation in broiler chickens mainly by enhancing cholesterol synthesis and uptake into liver. LTI chickens had higher amount of total cholesterol in liver, which might be associated with an increase of hepatic HMGCR protein expression. However, there is no interaction between TI and CORT on cholesterol metabolism in liver of broilers.