Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Cátedra de Química Biológica and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología de los Alimentos (ICTA), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 5016, Córdoba, Argentina.
Stress. 2011 Mar;14(2):166-73. doi: 10.3109/10253890.2010.523093. Epub 2010 Oct 31.
Procedures in the commercial production of animals involve stressful situations which lessen the animal's welfare. This study on Japanese quail evaluated whether an environmental enrichment manipulation can affect avian immune responses and if combined with a chronic stressor exposure can help to counteract the negative effects of stress on the immune system. Potential gender effects were also considered. After hatch, half of the birds were housed in non-enriched boxes and half were housed in environmentally enriched boxes. From day 33 to 42 of age, all birds within half of the non-enriched and enriched boxes remained undisturbed while the other half were daily exposed to a 15 min restraint stressor (chronic stressor). The inflammatory response (lymphoproliferation after phytohemagglutinin-p), percentage of lymphocytes, heterophil/lymphocyte (H/L) ratio and primary antibody response against sheep red blood cells were assessed. The chronic stressor application and the enrichment procedure, respectively, either increased or reduced the four immunological parameters evaluated and always in opposite directions. Males consistently showed lower antibody titres than females and presented the highest H/L ratio in response to the stressor when reared in the non-enriched environment. The findings indicate that submitting these animals to an enriched environment can be effectively used to improve their immune response and to reduce the detrimental effects of a stressor exposure.
商业生产动物的过程涉及到应激情况，这些情况会降低动物的福利。本研究以鹌鹑为实验动物，评估环境丰容操作是否会影响禽类的免疫反应，以及是否可以结合慢性应激源暴露来帮助对抗应激对免疫系统的负面影响。还考虑了潜在的性别效应。出壳后，一半的鹌鹑被安置在非丰容箱中，另一半被安置在环境丰容箱中。从 33 到 42 日龄，非丰容和丰容箱中的一半鹌鹑保持不被打扰，而另一半则每天暴露于 15 分钟的束缚应激源（慢性应激源）下。评估了炎症反应（植物血凝素-P 后的淋巴细胞增殖）、淋巴细胞百分比、嗜中性粒细胞/淋巴细胞（H/L）比值和针对绵羊红细胞的初级抗体反应。慢性应激源的应用和丰容程序分别增加或减少了评估的四个免疫学参数，而且总是朝着相反的方向。雄性鹌鹑始终表现出比雌性鹌鹑更低的抗体滴度，并且在非丰容环境中受到应激源刺激时，其 H/L 比值最高。这些发现表明，让这些动物生活在丰富的环境中可以有效地用于改善它们的免疫反应，并减轻应激源暴露的不利影响。
