Glucans and the Poultry Immune System
Jacqueline Jacob1 and Anthony Pescatore1- 1 University of Kentucky, United States
Abstract
With the reduced availability of antibiotics, poultry producers are looking for feed additives to stimulate the immune system of their birds. Some beta-glucans have been shown to improve gut health in poultry subjected to a bacterial challenge, to increase the flow of new immunocytes into the various lymphoid organs, to increase macrophage function, to increase antibody titers after a vaccination and to function as an anti-inflammatory immunomodulator. As a result, beta-glucans may provide a tool for producers trying to reduce or eliminate the use of antibiotics in poultry diets.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajisp.2017.45.49
Submitted On: 15 November 2016 Published On: 12 April 2017
How to Cite: Jacob, J. & Pescatore, A. (2017). Glucans and the Poultry Immune System. American Journal of Immunology, 13(1), 45-49. https://doi.org/10.3844/ajisp.2017.45.49
👁 Open Access
Copyright: © 2017 Jacqueline Jacob and Anthony Pescatore. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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