Abstract
Mycotoxins contaminated feed is one of the most serious problems in poultry and animal production sectors. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the effects of dietary oregano essential oil (OEO) for 4 weeks against the adverse effect of aflatoxins (AFs) on immunity, oxidative stress, Total and differential leucocytes counts (TLC and DLC), interleukin 1 (IL-1), nitric oxide (NO), lysozyme enzyme activity, serum malondialdehyde (MDA), catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and reduced glutathione (GSH). Beside growth performance [Weekly body weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR)] were also determined. A total of 132 male, 2 weeks old Japanese quails chicks (Coturnix japonica) were used in this study and equally divided into 4 groups. Group I is considered as negative control at which birds fed only basal diet, group II served as positive control and were fed AFs 2.5 mg /Kg supplemented basal diet, Groups III and IV were fed basal diet with 2.5 mg AFs /Kg and treated with OEO at a rate of 200 and 400 mg/Kg , respectively. Regarding growth performance, there was a significant (P<0.05) reduction in weight gain and FCR at 4th week of the experiment in group II, additionally different pattern was noticed in group IV which represented a significant (P<0.05) improvement as compared to the other AFs treated groups and was nearly similar to that of group I. Concerning Lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress enzyme and immune parameters at 4th week of the experiment, MDA was significantly (P<0.05) increased in AFs treated quails (II and III) but when AFs co-administered with 400 mg OEO, MDA was nearly similar to that of group I. The SOD, catalase, and GSH were decreased significantly (P<0.05) in groups (II and III) and was remarkably improved in group IV. The NO level was increased significantly (P<0.05) while lysozyme activity was decreased significantly (P<0.05) in group II, while they were decreased and increased in group IV, respectively. IL-1 and globulin as well as TLC were declined significantly (P<0.05) in groups II and III and improved nearly similar to control one in group IV. In conclusion, OEO has a potential and a protective effect against AFs B1 immuno-deteriorating effect in Japanese quails especially at 400 mg/ kg dose.
Highlights
Mycotoxins are metabolites produced from filamentous fungi causing a toxic response when ingested by animals.There are variety of toxins that are produced by several fungi (Glenn, 2007)
There was no difference in body weight gain of control quails and that treated with 2.5 mg AFS and 400 mg oregano essential oil (OEO)
We evaluated the ability of OEO to protect Japanese quails from the toxic effects of AFs
Summary
Mycotoxins are metabolites produced from filamentous fungi causing a toxic response when ingested by animals.There are variety of toxins that are produced by several fungi (Glenn, 2007). AFs B1 is the most prevalent toxin in cereals and induce the greatest toxigenic threat (Leeson et al, 1995). They are incorporated into membrane structures causes various adverse changes including fatty acid oxidation and lipid peroxidation (Surai et al, 2008). Physiological functions like development, growth, immunity and reproduction are altered These changes involve reduction in efficiency of feed utilization, body weight gain, reproductive capacities and immune suppression (Pestka, 2007) which leads to economic losses (Wu, 2004; Wu, 2006)
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