Abstract Nutrigenomics is a branch of nutritional genomics and is the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. involve scientific understanding of human or animal genomic/genetic contributions and responses to diet/feed. The nutrigenomics considers how things in diet influence individuals genome, and how this interaction modifies phenotype, i.e., how diet alters biological systems to promote either health or disease. Nutrigenetics, on the other hand, aims to figure out how any one of us is genetically programmed to respond in a particular way to a given dietary nutrient. Application of nutrigenomics could help enhance our understanding of how nutrition influences various biological pathways and homeostatic control; how this regulation is disturbed in the early phase of diet-related/deficiency diseases and to what extent individual genetic makeup contribute to such diseases. Numerous studies in humans, animals, and cell cultures have demonstrated that macronutrients, micronutrients and naturally occurring bioreactive chemicals regulate gene expression in diverse ways. Although relatively new technologies, the various genomics applications searching for new biomarkers already have found their way to many nutritional applications. Nutrigenomics can be used to identify the specific markers to manipulate gene expression through use of nutrients or their combinations so as to improve productive as well as overall animal performance. Nutrigeonmics will be a path breaking tool through identification of pathways and candidate genes responsible for dietary induced diseases and ultimately reduction in production losses due to these diseases in animals.
Keywords: Broiler; Genome; Metabolome; Markers; Nutrigenomics.