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.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-12-2017
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3844/ajisp.2017.45.49
Repository Citation
Jacob, Jacquie and Pescatore, Anthony J., "Glucans and the Poultry Immune System" (2017). Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications. 16.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/animalsci_facpub/16
Included in
Animal Sciences Commons, Food Science Commons, Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons
Notes/Citation Information
Published in American Journal of Immunology, v. 13, issue 1, p. 45-49.
© 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.