AUBURN, Ala .— After more than a decade of research into an increasingly common and costly broiler condition known as green muscle disease, a team of poultry scientists at Auburn University has identified a blood enzyme that could give breeders a noninvasive tool to screen birds for susceptibility to the disease.
The enzyme is creatine kinase, or CK, elevated levels of which signal muscle breakdown and damage. In humans, high CK levels in the blood can be indicators of heart attack, muscular dystrophy, acute renal failure and other serious muscle conditions. In broilers, they indicate the development of green muscle disease. . .

