2010 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) Identify and characterize differentially expressed serum proteins and peptides associated with poultry metabolic skeletal problems such as femoral head separation (FHS) and tibial dyschondroplasia (TD). 1b.Approach (from AD-416) Sera collected from FHS and TD-affected chickens, along with normal sera, will be analyzed to identify differentially occurring proteins and peptides. Low abundance proteins will be enriched while high abundance will be depleted using a library of hexapeptide-based affinity matrix called ProteoMiner. The proteins will be analyzed by 2D gel electrophoresis and characterized by peptide mass fingerprints and tandem mass spectrometry. The peptides will be enriched by solid phase extraction on C18 magnetic beads and analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. The characterization of the peptides will be done using tandem mass spectrometry. The identification of both proteins and peptides will be done using MASCOT and/or other similar data base search. 3.Progress Report In collaboration with University of Arkansas scientists, blood samples were collected from chickens with femoral head separation anomalies to study serum protein profile changes. The objective of this research is to discover biomarker(s) associated with this disorder. Preliminary evaluations of the protein separation methods have been completed.