CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Diet enrichment with omega-3 and antioxidant sources have become frequentin farming of animals. These diets beyond improving meat quality, could benefitanimals health during captivity. Reptile immunology involves cell-mediated and humoralcomponents and their study can be a good indicator of health condition of this animals.Our objective was to evaluate the effects of diet enrichment with flaxseeds and thymolfed during 30 days, on total (TWBC) and differential (DWBC) white blood cell count aswell as Heterophils/Lymphocytes (H/L) index and Natural Antibodies (NABs Titres) inCaiman latirostris blood. Animals were raised in plastic trays and fed 3 times a week withexperimental diets: Control Diet (C), C+Flaxseed (F), and C+T+F (TF). Although the highervalues for TWBCC were found in treated animals (F and TF), we did not find statisticaldifferences respect to C. However, when we evaluated the DWBCC, were found a declineof 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 populations respect toC, being different for monocytes/mm3 (p=0.043). Moreover, H/L index, as well as the othersleucocytes types analyzed values, showed no differences among treatments. NABs showedhigher titres in animals feed with diet enrichment related to C, being statically significant forF treatment (p=0.035). The decreases in some types of white blood cells such as eosinophilsand moconocytes in peripheral blood of F and FT caimans, which especially have allergicfunctions, show lack of reactivity towards enriched diet components. In addition, both thedecrease in lymphocyte populations with increases in heterophils, as well as the increasein antibody titers in the animals fed with enriched diet, could suggest an improvement inthe immune system of these animals.

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