APPLICATION OF ACUTE PHASE PROTEINS (APPs) AS BIOMARKERS IN CHICKENS: A REVIEW

Abstract

The importance of poultry industry to the world' economy is increasing. The current methods for identifying chickens' health problems are traditional and looking for new tools to diagnose poultry problems is of vital importance. Poultry industry is affected by infectious and metabolic disorders which are common in chickens and affect their well-being, cause stress, reduce performance and increase mortality. Measuring the acute phase proteins; secreted from the liver as a result of inflammation and/or infection that can be measured in plasma; levels were found to be useful in assessment of health status and prediction of diseases of the animals, and useful markers of inflammation in veterinary clinical pathology. Thus, acute phase proteins as diagnostic markers may be of a great value in identifying chickens' health problems, and thereby should allow optimal and fast measures to improve chickens' health and welfare. Although a wide range of studies has been carried out to determine the usefulness of acute phase proteins in several diseases in ruminants, their use as indicators in detection of diseases in chickens is less well documented. For this reason, this review article deals with the role of acute phase proteins in chickens' welfare, and brings together the studies on acute phase proteins that have been undertaken in chickens. In this review article, the immune system, acute phase response and the general diagnostic utility of acute phase proteins in veterinary practice were given. In addition, the most important acute phase proteins in chickens and their diagnostic utility in relation to metabolic disorders, inflammation, common chickens' diseases and stress were thoroughly discussed. Finally, this review highlights research gaps and directions deserving further development to create a better understanding of acute phase proteins for making these biomarkers a perfect predictive tool for chickens' health status and valuable diagnostic approaches in chickens.