Effects of dietary supplementation of chitosan on immune and antioxidative function in beef cattle

Abstract

The present experiment was conducted to study the effects of chitosan(CHI) on immune and anti-oxidative function in beef cattle. A total of24 fattening Simmental cattle with similar body weight and age weredivided randomly into three dietary groups, and the three dietscontained 0, 500, and 1000 mg/kg CHI, respectively. The feeding triallasted for 84 days. It was found that: (1) the addition of CHI in dietsimproved (P < 0.05) the levels of IgA and interleukin-1, and decreased(P < 0.1) the levels of soluble cluster of differentiation 4 receptor inserum at middle stage except that IgA remained unchanged in 1000 mg/kgCHI group. The levels of IgM and IgA tended to be increased (P < 0.1) bydietary CHI at later stage of the experiment; (2) the addition of 500mg/kg CHI in diets increased (P < 0.1) total superoxide dismutaseactivity and decreased (P < 0.05) malondialdehyde content in serum atearly and later stages, respectively. In conclusion, these resultsindicated that addition of 500 mg/kg CHI affected humoral and cellularimmune responses, and improved the antioxidative function of beefcattle.