Evaluation of whey protein sources on performance, liver antioxidants and immune responses of broiler chickens challenged with ethanol

Abstract

To evaluate the effects of whey protein (WP) sources on performance, liver antioxidants and immune responses of broiler chickens, 300 one‐d‐old male Ross 308 chickens were randomly allocated into six treatments with five replications of 10 birds each. This study was conducted on the basis of a completely randomized design in a 3 × 2 factorial arrangement with dietary supplemental WP sources (no WP; 2% WP and 2% whey protein concentrate (WPC)) and ethanol (zero and 6%) into drinking water. Birds were challenged with ethanol 6% from 10 to 24 days of age. Growth performance, immune responses, intestinal morphology and antioxidant enzymes were assessed in both challenged and non‐challenged groups. There was a significant interaction between ethanol and WP sources for growth performance, so that weight gain (WG), feed intake (FI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were significantly improved in broiler chickens challenged with ethanol and fed with WP (p < .05). Intestinal morphology, humoral responses and heterophil to lymphocyte ratio (H/L) were not affected by WP sources. Cellular immunity responses were significantly lower in control group and challenged birds fed with WP compared with other groups after 48 hr of phytohemagglutinin‐P (PHA‐P) injection. Ethanol challenge decreased liver antioxidant enzyme activities and increased levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activities. Dietary inclusion of WP and WPC increased levels of liver antioxidant enzymes and decreased MDA and ALT activities. It can be recommended to use WP for improving the growth performance and liver antioxidant enzymes in broiler chickens challenged with ethanol.

Corticosterone-Mediated Physiological Stress Alters Liver, Kidney, and Breast Muscle Metabolomic Profiles in Chickens

“…The liver is the primary site of ethanol catabolism, and chronic ethanol ingestion and metabolism causes mild damage to the liver though oxidative stress [ 48 ] and can induce fatty liver disease [ 48 , 54 ]. Furthermore, the administration of ethanol to chickens has been shown in previous studies to decrease liver antioxidant enzyme activities [ 55 ]. The combination of increased oxidative stress and reduced antioxidant enzymes would be expected to result in an increase in energy demands in the liver.…”

Effect of dietary digestible sulphur amino acids level on growth performance, blood metabolites and liver functional enzymes of broilers 1–11 days of age

“…Weight gain and RBW were negatively correlated with AST concentration (Table 6). Sulphur-containing AAs (Met þ Cys) may improve antioxidant properties by participating in the production of GSH (Afkhami et al 2020). Antioxidants could alleviate the adverse effects of stress and declined liver functional enzymes (Kanani et al 2016).…”

Estimation of digestible sulphur amino acids requirements for growth performance and immune responses to Newcastle disease and avian influenza vaccination in broilers

“…It is cleared, the concentration of these two enzymes in serum will reduce in broiler chickens when the liver works healthy (Rezaeipour et al 2016). Sulphur containing amino acids (cystine and methionine) may improve antioxidant properties by participating in the production of GSH (Afkhami et al 2020). Reported stress increased liver enzyme activity, but supplementation of antioxidant nutrients could alleviate the adverse effects of stress (Kanani et al 2016).…”

“…Higher antibody titre for ND and AI vaccination was observed in chicks fed on the diets that contained up to 0.73% digestible SAAs, whereas adding above this amount did not cause more improvement in antibody titre (Table 5, Figures 5 and 6). It was reported that deficiency of dietary protein or amino acids impairs immune system activity and increases the susceptibility of animals and humans to infectious diseases (Afkhami et al 2020). Methionine plays a key role in the humoral and cellular immune function (Jankowski et al 2014).…”