CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Diet enrichmentwith omega-3 and antioxidant sources have become frequent in farming ofanimals. These diets beyond improving meat quality, could benefit animalshealth during captivity. Reptile immunology involves cell-mediated and humoralcomponents and their study can be a good indicator of health condition of thisanimals. Our objective was to evaluate the effects of diet enrichment withflaxseeds and thymol fedduring 30 days, on total (TWBC)and differential (DWBC) white blood cell count as well as Heterophils/Lymphocytes(H/L) index and Natural Antibodies (NABs Titres) in Caiman latirostris blood. Animals were raised in plastic trays andfed 3 times a week with experimental diets: Control Diet (C), C+Flaxseed (F),and C+T+F (TF). Although the higher values for TWBCC were found in treatedanimals (F and TF), we did not find statistical differences respect to C. However,when we evaluated the DWBCC, were found a decline of monocytes/mm3 (p= 0.043), of eosinophils/mm3(p=0.002) and of lymphocytes/mm3(p= 0.05) in TF respect to C animals,with an increase of heterophils/mm3 in these treatments.Furthermore, F treatment showed low values for those leucocytes populationsrespect to C, being different for monocytes/mm3 (p=0.043). Moreover, H/L index, as wellas the others leucocytes types analyzed values, showed no differences amongtreatments. NABs showed higher titres in animals feed with diet enrichmentrelated to C, being statically significant for F treatment (p=0.035). The decreases in some types ofwhite blood cells such as eosinophils and moconocytes in peripheral blood of Fand FT caimans, which especially have allergic functions, show lack ofreactivity towards enriched diet components. In addition, both the decrease inlymphocyte populations with increases in heterophils, as well as the increasein antibody titers in the animals fed with enriched diet, could suggest animprovement in the immune system of these animals.

enviar mensaje