Jadranka Pejaković Hlede

Acute whole-body low dose gamma irradiation does not affect humoral immunity in chicken

It has been documented that low-dose ionizing irradiation enhanced the immune response on both cellular and humoral immunity in mammals. In the present study three experiments were conducted to compare antibody titer against vaccinal strain of Newcastle disease virus after low-dose total body gamma irradiation in chickens. In all experiments, male Leghorn chicks were irradiated, on day 1 or 3 of life, with the dose of 0.05, 0.15, 0.30, 0.50 and 0.80 Gy gamma radiation. In two experiments, after irradiation, chicks were vaccinated with the commercial Newcastle disease vaccine by the nebulisation method. Blood samples were collected for serological analyses from day one or 7 up to day 28 in weekly interval, depending on experimental design. Specific serum anti- Newcastle disease virus antibodies were quantitated by hemagglutination inhibition assay. No significant effect on the level of hemagglutination inhibition maternal antibody titer and antibody titer against vaccinal Newcastle disease virus strain as well as on the antibody rate catabolism was found. The ionizing radiation used in the present experiment did not influence the humoral immune response in this light strain of chickens.