Principles and agro-technical applications of egg yolk immunoglobulins

CHACANA, P. A.; TERZOLO, H. R.; SCHADE, R.; FUROWICZ, A. J. J.; BORKOWSKI, J. P.

ADVANCES IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES

Ed. de la University of Agriculture in Szczecin

Lugar: Szczecin, Polonia; Año: 2004 vol. 3 p. 7 - 18

This article introduces IgY-technology, principally focusing on its practical approaches. IgY has applications in several fields of science, agriculture, human and veterinary medicine and also in the design of novel diagnostic methodologies. Some characteristics and properties of IgY concerning its molecular structure, its concentration in the egg yolk, its stability and particularly its advantages in comparison to mammal IgG are described. In comparison to IgG, IgY have benefits for the animal welfare, IgY is able to detects highly conserved mammalian proteins, has no cross reaction with rheumatoid factors, does not activate the mammal complement system and avoids the interference of hetero-agglutinins in human being useful for human blood group classification. It is described the technique of immunisation of hens, the dose of antigen, the use of different adjuvants, the routes of antigen administration, the immunisation schemes, the extraction and purification of IgY from the yolk, and the preservation of IgY solutions. Finally, some of the many applications of IgY technology are given as examples, selecting those related to agricultural and veterinary sciences. IgY is used in diagnosis systems, such as the detection of potato virus Y, potato leafroll virus, grapevine fanleaf virus and grapevine virus A; also for detection of the antibiotic flumequine in raw milk and hazelnut proteins in foods. There are several works describing the utilisation of IgY for the immunoprophylaxis calf and piglet diarrhoeas and the inhibition of the verotoxigenic strain Escherichia coli 0157: H7. Due to the huge progress of the poultry industry achieving a very high cost-effective production of eggs, it possible to industrially apply this knowledge to practically reduce the incidence of diarrhoeic diseases in children by means of nutraceutical food.