Chicken hepatic injury and food safety: From etiological drivers to pathogenic mechanisms

Chicken liver features pleasant taste and abundant heme iron, vitamin A and B vitamins, rendering it a nutrient-dense food applicable to infant complementary foods and daily human diets. As the central metabolic hub and detoxifying organ in chickens, the liver exerts an irreplaceable function in supporting poultry growth and development as well as maintaining systemic physiological homeostasis. Alongside the booming development of poultry farming, hepatic lesions in chickens arising from mycotoxin contamination, improper medication, bacterial and parasitic infections, viral infection, heavy metal exposure, environmental stress, as well as synergistic effects of multiple detrimental factors, have become increasingly prevalent, posing substantial economic losses to the global poultry industry and raising potential public health concerns regarding food safety. A growing body of evidence reveals that although the etiological drivers of chicken liver injury are remarkably diverse, they converge on a limited set of core pathways: oxidative stress, inflammation, lipid metabolic disturbance, and programmed cell death. The gut-liver axis serves as a critical hub linking intestinal homeostasis with hepatic pathology. Importantly, hepatic injury also poses multidimensional food safety risks-chemical residues, zoonotic pathogens, and nutritional quality deterioration-that extend along the entire production chain. Systematically summarizing these etiological drivers and pathogenic mechanisms and their food safety implications will provide critical insights into safeguarding chicken liver-derived products.