Selenium influence in the poultry immune response--review.

Selenium is an essential mineral for organic function on animal and human body. This mineral is important due to its function as antioxidant in organism, it neutralizes the free radicals that are resultant from many factors but especially by immune response. Diet is the major source of selenium. In poultry, the nutritional requirements for all nutrients and even selenium was normally calculated based on experimental trial using health animal in very low challenge conditions. However, on practical way animals are continually exposed to different infection challenges and intense vaccine program increasing immune system activation. On this aspect, there are studies that show that immune activation response increases the necessity of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. The objective of this review is to present recent patents information about the influence of selenium on immune response and practices applied on poultry production.