Applicability of a Spectrophotometric Method for Assessment of Oxidative Stress in Poultry

Petra Regenhard,Helga Sauerwein,Dimitar Nakov

doi:10.14432/j.macvetrev.2013.10.002

Petra Regenhard, Helga Sauerwein + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.14432/j.macvetrev.2013.10.002

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Abstract

Abstract Oxidative stress is discussed as being related to health, welfare, and also to product quality. Recently, a spectrophotometric method based on the Fenton reaction (reactive oxygen metabolites, ROM) has been proposed to characterize pro-oxidative stressors in body fluids by determining early products of oxidation from proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. The applicability of this method for blood samples from various bird species was tested. The validity of the method for mammalian domestic animals was demonstrated by linearity yielded with increasing amounts of serum. In contrast, serum obtained from chicken yielded ROM concentrations below the limit of detection when serum volumes comparable to mammalian samples were used. Applying higher amounts of serum was not increasing the optical density readings in a linear way. To assess whether the lack of sensitivity and linearity is a problem limited to chicken or poultry in general, we tested sera from laying hens, turkey, duck, goose, pheasant, pigeon, and guinea fowl. For most of the species tested, the method could not be validly applied. There is no reason to assume that oxidative stress in birds may not exist, therefore we conclude that bird specific matrix effects hinder the valid application of the ROMs test in poultry.

Highlights

Oxidative stress has been defined as a loss of counterbalance between free radical or reactive oxygen species production and the antioxidant systems
In the only report about the use of the dROM test in chicken [21], we could find in the literature, no data about the validity of the assay for this matrix were provided, and the values reported were out of the linearity range of d-ROMs as assessed in a comparison of different methods about oxidative stress tests [22]
Our results indicate that matrix components being exclusively present in blood serum of most of the poultry species tested, severely interfere with the dROMs test and prohibit the valid application of this test principle for these species

Summary

Introduction

Oxidative stress has been defined as a loss of counterbalance between free radical or reactive oxygen species production and the antioxidant systems. Oxidative processes represent the main causes for meat quality deterioration. Oxidative stress is increasingly discussed as being related to health (for review see 1, 2) and has been proposed as a welfare parameter [3]. There are basically three different methodological approaches to characterize oxidative stress: 1) Measuring the anti-oxidative capacity

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