| The effects of vitamin E (VE) and Arginine (ARG) on humoral and cellular immunity in chickens were investigated in two experiments. The humoral immunity was measured by antibody responses to sheep red blood cells (SRBC) and maternal antibody titers to the infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), while the cellular immunity was studied using the cutaneous basophil hypersensitivity test to phytogemagglutinin (PHA) and by counting subpopulations of T-lymphocytes. We used two levels of ARG: normal (NARG, 1.2% in feed) and high ARG (HARG, additional 0.3% in drinking water or 1% in feed in experiments 1 and 2, respectively); and three levels of VE were given: 40, 80, and 400 IU/kg feed in experiment 1, and 40, 80, and 200 in experiment 2.;Naive birds fed HARG exhibited a higher response than NARG birds (P<0.05) to PHA-P at d 17 and to PHA-M at d 41, but, after a second exposure, high ARG levels did not have an effect. Also, in naive birds, the effects of VE were not significant at d 17, but showed an influence after a second exposure in 41-d-old birds.;The percentage of T-helper (Th) and T-cytotoxic (Tc) cells in the blood of 29-d-old birds were not different between ARG levels (P=0.07 and P=0.06, respectively), but Th cells were higher in the VE80 and VE200 birds than in the VE40 birds, and Tc was higher in the VE80 than in the VE40 birds (P=0.02). The B-cell:T-cell ratio was higher in the HARG than the NARG birds (P=0.01) and in the VE40 compared with the VE80 and VE200 birds (P<0.001). Neither ARG nor VE had an effect on the ratio of Th:Tc cells, nor on the percentage of immature T-lymphocytes.;A combination of high levels of ARG and high levels of VE (80 IU/kg of BW) has an important immunomodulation effect on the cellular and humoral immune responses in broiler chickens, improving both maternal antibody titers against the IBDV and antibody titers against SRBC. A combination of ARG and VE increases the proportions of Th and Tc cells, the B-cell:T-cell ratio, and growth performance. The evidence suggests that ARG and VE play complementary and regulatory role on immune response and may enhance the resistance of broilers to infectious diseases.;HARG improved the antibody response to SRBC compared with NARG ( P<0.01 for experiment 1 and P<0.013 for experiment 2) 4 days after injection in both experiments. In experiment 1, the VE80 birds maintained higher antibody titers to SRBC (P<0.001) than the VE40 and VE400 birds 4, 8 and 16 d after inoculation. In experiment 2, the antibody titers to SRBC were higher in the VE80 birds compared with the VE200 birds at days 5, 8, and 12 after inoculation (P<0.001). Maternal antibody titers (log10) to the IBDV were higher in the HARG than in the NARG diet in 17-day-old birds (P<0.001) and higher in the VE80 than in the VE40 birds (P<0.001), yet similar to those of the VE200 birds. No interactions were found between ARG and VE.;Key words. Arginine, vitamin E, humoral immunity, cell-mediated immunity, lymphocyte, ELISA. |
