Effects of thymol and carvacrol supplementation on intestinal integrity and immune responses of broiler chickens challenged with Clostridium perfringens

Table 10 Effect of essential oils on the humoral and cellular immunity parameters of broilers^d

Item	NDV antibody titers, log₁₀	sIgA, mg/g protein	ConA SI	LPS SI
Treatment
U1	3.01	2.24	1.14	1.12
U2	2.87	2.16	1.04	0.94
U3	2.96	2.24	0.97	1.12
U4	2.79	2.51	0.94	1.11
C1	2.80^{c, *}	3.84	1.05	1.20
C2	3.14^{c, *}	3.43	0.82	1.04
C3	4.13^{b, *}	3.42	0.99	1.01
C4	4.24^{a, *}	3.22	0.94	1.00
SEM	0.085	0.259	0.031	0.03
P-value
Challenge	<0.001	0.033	0.217	0.836
EO	<0.001	0.991	0.183	0.279
Challenge × EO	<0.001	0.950	0.505	0.425
Linear^e	NA	0.800	0.157	0.493
Quadratic^e	NA	0.760	0.255	0.225

^a,b,cMean values within the same column not sharing a common uppercase superscript letter differ significantly (P ≤ 0.05)
^dValues are means of eight replicates per treatment. NDV Newcastle disease virus, sIgA secretory IgA, ConA concanavalin A, LPS lipopolysaccharides, SI stimulation index, SEM pooled standard error, EO essential oils, NA not analyzed
^eWhen the interaction between C. perfringens challenge and EO supplementation was not significant, linear and quadratic polynomial contrasts were performed on the main-effect means to EO dosages
^* When the interaction was significant, mean values within the challenged or unchallenged groups have a linear and quadratic dose response to EO dosages (P ≤ 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891