Aflatoxin in Chicken's Feed and it's Effects on Apoptosis

Abstract

One hundred samples of ration, protein, corn, soybean, and wheat were collected from poultry houses in Baghdad and suburbs to examine Aflatoxin occurrence in chicken's diet. ALISA technique was used for this purpose.The results revealed presence of high level of Aflatoxin in ration (P< 0.05) compared with other contents of diet fallowed by soybean (P< 0.05) then corn, wheat, and protein respectively .These contents were mixed and tested by ELISA and presented to the experiment chicks. One hundred and twenty, one day old chicks, were divided to four groups, first group (G1) was fed contaminated Aflatoxin feed and did not vaccinated. The second group (G2) was fed contaminated feed and vaccinated with Newcastle Disease vaccine (NDV) and Infectious Bursal Disease vaccine (IBDV), whereas the third group (G3) was fed uncontaminated feed and vaccinated with NDV and IBDV, and the forth group (G4) -Control group- was fed uncontaminated feed and didn't vaccinated.After four days of the beginning of the experiment, blood, liver, and kidney samples were collected, and this procedure was repeated every four days to estimate total protein, haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, ELISA test to detect (ND) antibody titer. Results showed decrease in total protein and (ND) antibodies in the groups which were fed contaminated feed.Liver and kidney samples were collected for histopathologic examination which showed vacculation, fatty change and hemorrhage in liver and kidney samples in addition to accumulation of lymphocytes. Condensing of Bauman capsule's tufts in kidney. Increased Kupher's cell in the liver. Apoptosis was noticed significantly in group one and group two, compared with group three and control. It was concluded that Aflatoxin in high concentration in chicken feed and feed contents was present, with negative impact of the toxin on ND vaccination and blood total protein, also affects the histology of liver and kidney.