College of Veterinary Medicine, China
Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China; 1College of Life Sciences, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding 071000, China
*Corresponding
author:hecheng@cau.edu.cn
Abstract
Currently,
Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) is a highly contagious disease leading to huge economic losses in poultry industry. Our objective was
to investigate potential therapeutic effects of the combined extracts of Rhizoma Dryopteridis
crassirhizomatis and Fructus mume (RDCFM)against IBDV infection. Seventy-two4-week-old
SPF chickens were randomly divided into six groups and inoculated intranasally with 0.2 ml of 102.5 EID50 of IBDV strain CJ801. Twenty-four hours post infection, the birds were orally administered with
400,
200 and
100
mg/kg BW of RDCFM, respectively, 125 mg/kg Astragalus polysaccharide (ASP) and saline water, respectively for 5 days and then
monitored daily for 10 days. Finally, the
remaining birds were euthanized to collect the sera for detecting antibodies and immune organs for determining the
immune organs index as well as virus
loads. The herbal extracts improved survival rate and
relative body gain rate. Virus loads in bursa of Fabricius in herbal treated
groups decreased significantly whilehigher antibody levels were detected in the three RDCFM groups as compared to those of ASPand
infection group. These results implied that chickens administered with
100-200
mg/kg of RDCFM for
5 days could improve protection against IBDV infection and RDCFM may be a
promising alternative to ASP and egg
yolk antibody.