The Immunotoxicity Studies on Jatropha curcas Kernel Meal in Young Broilers

摘要

Jatropha curcas Kernel Meal (JKM) is used in animal diet as the source of vegetable protein but it is toxic to animal. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxic effect of JKM on immune functions in young broilers. A total of 875; 1 day old male Arbor Acres chickens were fed diets containing 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12% JKM for 21 days, respectively. In the entire experimental period, the level of serum lysozyme showed no significant difference compared with control (p>0.05). Dietary JKM linearly decreased the contents of serum IgA and IgG (p≤0.05) and markedly increased the contents of serum IgM (p<0.05) and also significantly decreased the percentage of CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ in blood (p<0.01) on day 7, 14 and 21. Histopathological studies on 21 days old broilers showed that dietary JKM caused the lesions of thymus, spleen and bursa of Fabricius, exhibiting widely diffuse hemorrhages. These results suggest that dietary JKM at 3-12% could result in immunosuppression or immunodepression in young broilers and the responses followed a dose dependent manner.