Abstract
BackgroundA healthy immune system plays a particularly important role in newborns, including in calves that are far more susceptible to infections (viral, bacterial and other) than adult individuals. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the influence of HMB on the chemotactic activity (MIGRATEST® kit), phagocytic activity (PHAGOTEST® kit) and oxidative burst (BURSTTEST® kit) of monocytes and granulocytes in the peripheral blood of calves by flow cytometry.ResultsAn analysis of granulocyte and monocyte chemotactic activity and phagocytic activity revealed significantly higher levels of phagocytic activity in calves administered HMB than in the control group, expressed in terms of the percentage of phagocytising cells and mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). HMB also had a positive effect on the oxidative metabolism of monocytes and granulocytes stimulated with PMA (4-phorbol-12-β-myristate-13-acetate) and Escherichia coli bacteria, expressed as MFI values and the percentage of oxidative metabolism.ConclusionHMB stimulates non-specific cell-mediated immunity, which is a very important consideration in newborn calves that are exposed to adverse environmental factors in the first weeks of their life. The supplementation of animal diets with HMB for both preventive and therapeutic purposes can also reduce the use of antibiotics in animal production.
Highlights
A healthy immune system plays a important role in newborns, including in calves that are far more susceptible to infections than adult individuals
The chemotactic activity of peripheral blood neutrophils in calves was expressed by the chemotactic index (Fig. 1a, b)
The mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of granulocytes, which denotes the number of ingested bacteria per phagocyte (Fig. 2C), increased significantly (p < 0.001, p < 0.01 respectively) between experimental days 15 and 30 in the experimental group relative to the control group and relative to the mean baseline value
Summary
A healthy immune system plays a important role in newborns, including in calves that are far more susceptible to infections (viral, bacterial and other) than adult individuals. Non-infectious factors, such as the season of birth, low birth weight, unfavourable environment, absence of colostrum feeding after birth or colostrum feeding at an inappropriate time, as well as infectious factors that cause gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases, are the most frequent causes of disease that contribute to high mortality in newborn calves and cause production losses [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15] These diseases are difficult to treat and the prognosis is doubtful, which is why prevention, including immunoprevention, could play a very important role in calf rearing [16,17,18]. Beta-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate occurs naturally in humans, animals and plants This endogenous metabolite of the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) leucine (LEU) is produced when leucine is oxidised in the cell cytoplasm, mainly in the liver and muscles. Approximately 5% of leucine is metabolised into HMB, whereas KIC is mostly converted to isovaleryl-CoA [19, 20]
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