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Plasma Components as Traits for Resistance to Coccidiosis in Chicken
For successful genetic dissection of disease resistance it is of great importance to accurately identify the respective phenotypes. In case of coccidiosis some of the conventional phenotypes don’t fully reflect the animal health status. The objective of this study was large-scale evaluation of plasma components as potential parameters for describing health status of broilers challenged with Eimeria maxima. The challenge was performed on 2024 Cobb500 broilers. Plasma coloration was measured on all the animals while measurement of plasma protein content and analysis of plasma protein composition were performed on subset of 184 extreme animals selected based on body weight gain. All fractions of plasma proteins associated with acute phase proteins, except β1-globulin, have been significantly elevated. We observed that the best estimation of plasma coloration variation under a coccidiosis challenge can be obtained by measuring optical density between 450 and 490 nm.
Keywords:
Plasma components
Coccidiosis
Disease resistance
