Effect of different levels of dietary sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) peel extract on humoral immune system responses in broiler chickens.

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) peel extract (SOPE) on humoral immune system responses in broiler chickens. Three hundred 1-day broilers (Ross-308) were randomly allocated to treatments varying in supplemental SOPE added in the drinking water. The experimental groups consisted of three treatments fed for 42 days as follows: a control treatment without feed extract, a treatment containing 1000ppm of SOPE and a treatment containing 1250ppm of SOPE. All treatments were isocaloric and isonitrogenous. Broilers were vaccinated with Newcastle disease virus (NDV), avian influenza (AI), infectious bursal disease (IBD) and infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) vaccines. Antibody titer response to sheep red blood cells (SRBC) was higher in the group fed 1250ppm of SOPE (P<0.05) as well as for immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM. Similarly, antibody titer responses to all vaccines were constantly elevated (P<0.05) by SOPE enrichment in a dose-dependent manner. Relative weights of spleen and bursa of Fabricius were unaffected by treatments. Dietary SOPE supplementation may improve the immune response and diseases resistance, indicating that it can constitute a useful additive in broiler feeding. Thus, supplying SOPE in rations may help to improve relative immune response in broiler chickens

The effects of dietary supplementation of Citrus sinensispeel extract on production and quality parameters of broiler chicken

Citrus peel, a by-product of citrus processing is a rich source of numerous bioactive nutrients. This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of Citrus sinensis peel extract (CSPE) on few production and quality traits of broiler chickens. Four hundred broiler chicks (one-day-old) were assigned to any of the five dietary treatments comprised of: basal diet for 42 days, or basal diet containing 1000 ppm or 1250 ppm CSPE for 21 days, or basal diet containing 1000 ppm or 1250 ppm CSPE for 42 days. Compared to the final weight of broilers on the basal diet (2426.3 ± 120.9 g), the supplementation of the diet with 1000 ppm CSPE for 21 days resulted in significantly (P < 0.05) higher final weight (2692.5 ± 120.9 g), while that with 1250 ppm CSPE for 42 days resulted in a significantly lower (P < 0.05) abdominal fat content (47.94 vs. 28.75 ± 4.38 g). Supplementation with 1000 or 1250 ppm CSPE for 21 days or 42 days had no significant effect on the final weight, empty body weight, breast weight, thigh yield and wing yields and fresh weights and percentages of internal organ/tissues (pancreas, liver and bile, gizzard, heart) and intestinal length (duodenum, jejunum and ileum). It is concluded that citrus peel extract can be utilized as a dietary supplementation to improve the productivity (higher final weight) and quality (lower abdominal fat content) of broiler chicken

Highly Conserve Sequences in Envelope, Nucleoprotein and RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase of SARS-CoV-2 in Nasopharyngeal Samples of the COVID-19 Patients; a Diagnostic Target for Further Studies

Background: The etiological agent of coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Conventional molecular methods are used to detect viruses in COVID-19 infected patients. This study aimed to investigate escape mutations from molecular detection on SARS-CoV-2 targeted genes, which indicates the importance of mutations in false-negative PCR test results in the detection of virus in clinical specimens of patients with COVID-19. Materials and Methods: The 20 nasopharyngeal swabs samples collected from COVID-19 confirmed patients. The SARS-CoV-2 E, nsp12, and N genetic regions are amplified by RT-PCR assay. PCR products were sequenced using the Sanger sequencing method and Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) to assess the polymorphism and mutations performed using MEGA X software and the Maximum likelihood method for the phylogenetic evaluation. Results: Among all COVID-19 cases, 60 and 40 were male and female, respectively. The MSA showed high conservation between all evaluated samples and VOCs in all N, E, and nsp12 genes. Also, the phylogenetic evaluation by the Maximum likelihood method reported high similarity between all SARS-CoV-2 sequenced samples, VOCs, and Wuhan reference sequences in the evaluated region. Conclusion: Our study results approved the relatively conserved suitability of the E, N, and RdRp-gene regions with no diversity, therefore, making them perfect candidates for first-line screening. © 2022 The authors