Egg Yolk Immunoglobulins Used as Additives in Meat Quality

Abstract

The quality of food and feed is more and more in the first place of research, being tightly related to the health state of humans and animals. Due to these features, antibiotics used in animals are no longer agreed to be used, and natural supplements are encouraged to be used to increase the meat's nutritional quality. One of the natural immunoglobulins used as a replacement for antibiotics is egg yolk immunoglobulin Y (IgY), which is added in diet supplementation for feeding animals. The combination of probiotics and other substances with an immunological role, especially some natural immunoglobulins - such as IgY, has multiple advantages. Thus, it can be increased meat production, improve the immunological status of animals which decreases the stress effects, improve infection resistance, increase the quality of carcasses - which implicitly also leads to economic growth, and also obtaining animal products without the addition of antibiotics or growth stimulants, or even obtaining organic products. There are several cost-effective methods to extract natural immunoglobulin IgY from egg yolk: using dextran blue, polyethylene glycol, chloroform, and cryo-ethanol treatment followed by precipitation with ammonium sulfate. In this paper, we will present some features regarding the methods of extracting IgY immunoglobulins from the egg yolk, the way of using these immunoglobulins in animal breeding and improvement technologies, as well as the biotechnological advantages that derive from the use of this natural product.

Keywords

• egg yolk immunoglobulins
• meet quality