Effect of Chinese herbal medicine mixture on immune function in chickens

The effect of Chinese herbal medicine mixture on the immune function and interferon production of the chickens were studied. The effects were determined on 28,30,34,41,48,55 days of age chickens in experimental groups and the control group, they are the proliferation of T lymphocytes induced by ConA; CD4+, CD8+ subsets of T lymphocyte and the ratio of CD4+ / CD8+ T lymphocytes; the ND antibody titer; the indexes of the thymus, spleen and Fabricius′ bursa. The results showed that the proliferation of T lymphocytes induced by ConA in blood of the experimental groups were significantly different from that of the control group by 34~41 days of age (P 0.05); The CD4+, CD8+ subsets of T lymphocyte had no significant difference (P 0.05), and the ratio of CD4+ / CD8+ T lymphocyte subsets were increased obviously (P 0.05) from 30 to 34 days of age; by 34~41 days of age ,the ND antibody titer were higher significantly than that of the control group (P 0.05); the indexes of the thymus, spleen and Fabricius′bursa were increased, the index of Fabricius′ bursa in experimental groups was higher significantly than that in the control group on 41-day-old (P 0.05). The Chinese herbal medicine mixture could induce the production of interferon significantly (P 0.01) and had the same interferon-inducing ability as NDV. That could also promote the induction of interferon by NDV, the level had great significant difference (P 0.01). The results showed that the Chinese herbal medicine mixture could enhance the immune function in chickens and increase the IFN production had in chickens obviously, which might be beneficial to regulating body immunization, the theoretical evidence was provided for the Chinese herbal medicine mixture against NDV.