Beneficial impacts of bee pollen in animal production,reproduction and health

Bee pollen (BP) is one of the most useful therapeutic products favoured by natural medicine scientists because of its possible nutritional and medical applications. It exhibits many impacts such as antimicrobial, immunostimulating, antioxidants and hepatoprotective. Furthermore, BP has some useful therapeutic features in numerous pathological situations such as its impact to normalize wound healing. Based on previous literatures, the level of BP supplement in livestock and poultry ranged from 0.1 to 20 g/kg diet. This variation depends on the species, physiological status, age and purpose of addition; so far generally, it accepted to use the level with no side effects. It has been observed that BP enhanced growth performance, immunity responses and blood variables and had hypoglycaemic activity by reducing the lipid in the blood and carcass. Also, BP contains more nutrients, which stimulate faster differentiation and proliferation of the cells of immune system of birds. Therefore, the present review recommends that BP supplementation (up to 20 g/kg diet) had possible beneficial impacts, antioxidants and protective activities on most of the production, productive and health patterns of livestock.     

Vitamin D Deficiency Impairs Spatial Learning in Adult Rats

Background: Through its membrane and intracellular receptors, vitamin D regulates many vital functions in the body including its well known actions on musculoskeletal system. Growing body of evidences demonstrate that vitamin D undergoes some of behavioral aspects of neurocognition. The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of food regimens without vitamin D or with a supplement of 1,25(OH)₂D3 on spatial performance of adult rats. Methods: The animals were trained in the Morris water maze to find a hidden platform. The time spent and the distance traveled to find the platform, speed of navigation and the percentage of unsuccessful trials were considered for assessment of the task learning. Results: Our findings indicated that the vitamin D-deprived rats had a significant lower performance compared to both the controls and the animals receiving 1,25(OH)₂D3 supplementation. Concerning the unsuccessful trials, lack of vitamin D resulted in the highest failures in the maze navigation. The regimen with additional 1,25(OH)₂D3 did not considerably influence learning of the maze task. Conclusion: We concluded that while vitamin D deficiency deteriorates the spatial task learning, the 1,25(OH)₂D3 supplementation did not effectively underlie the maze performance. Key Words: Vitamin D, Maze learning, Dietary supplements     

Anti-acne activity of tannin-related compounds isolated from Terminalia laxiflora

In our investigation to find out new anti-acne agent, we focused on Terminalia laxiflora Engl & Diels (Combretaceae) methanolic wood extract, which has been selected during previous screening experiments for anti-acne agents, which included 29 species of Sudanese medicinal plants. Based on the biologically guided fractionation using an antibacterial assay against Propionibacterium acnes, a lipase inhibitory assay and 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity assay; five tannin-related compounds were isolated, such as ellagic acid, flavogallonic acid dilactone, terchebulin and gallic acid. Terchebulin showed good antibacterial activity; minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) = 125 μg/ml and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) = 250 μg/ml. Gallic acid exhibited lipase inhibitory activity with IC₅₀ value of 149.3 μM, which showed strong inhibition compared with terchebulin, IC₅₀ 260.7 μM. However, all compounds exhibited better or equal DPPH radical scavenging activity to (+)-catechin as positive control. Ellagic acid and terchebulin showed the best DPPH radical scavenging activities, IC₅₀ 4.86 and 4.90 μM, respectively. This study demonstrated that terchebulin has potentiality as an anti-acne agent.     

The toxicity of Cassia senna to Nubian goats

Ten Nubian goats were given oral doses of the fresh fruits and leaves of Cassia senna at 1, 5, and 10 g / kg /day. Eight goats died within 30 days and two others were slaughtered in a moribund condition on days 18 and 29. The clinical signs of diarrhoea, inappetence, loss of condition, and dyspnoea were well correlated with the pathological findings. There was an increase in G.O.T., ammonia, urea, and total cholesterol and a decrease in total protein in the serum of Cassia‐poisoned goats. Blood sugar level was reduced and the increase in the values of Hb, PCV, and RBC was due to haemoconcentration.     

Evaluation of in vitro and in vivo inhibitory effects of fusidic acid on Babesia and Theileria parasites

Fusidic acid known to has antibacterial, antifungal, and antimalarial activities. Fusidic acid blocks translation elongation factor G gene in Plasmodium falciparum. In the present study, the inhibitory effects of fusidic acid on the in vitro growth of bovine and equine Babesia parasites were evaluated. The inhibitory effect of fusidic acid on the in vivo growth of Babesia microti was also assessed. The in vitro growth of four Babesia species that were tested was significantly inhibited (P < 0.05) by micromolar concentrations of fusidic acid (IC₅₀ values = 144.8, 17.3, 33.3, and 56.25 μM for Babesia bovis, Babesia bigemina, Babesia caballi, and Theileria equi, respectively). Combinations of fusidic acid with diminazene aceturate synergistically potentiated its inhibitory effects in vitro on B. bovis and B. caballi. In B. microti-infected mice, fusidic acid caused significant (P < 0.05) inhibition of the growth of B. microti at the dose of 500 mg/kg BW relative to control group. These results indicate that fusidic acid might be incorporated in treatment of babesiosis.     

Laparoscopic Anatomy of the Abdomen and Laparoscopic Ligating Loops,Electrocoagulation, and a Novel Modified Electroligation Ovariectomy in Standing Mare

The purpose of this study was to provide a detailed laparoscopic anatomy of the caudal abdominal region of mare in a standing position and to evaluate and modify a technique for standing laparoscopic ovariectomy using combination between hand-tied ligating loop and electrocoagulation techniques, as the ligating loops, electrocoagulation, and modified electroligation laparoscopic ovariectomy were applied using nine adult mares. Laparoscopy was practical and effective for direct visual examination of internal abdominal organs in the mare. Ventral dislocation of abdominal viscera after pneumoperitoneum was established with the mare in standing position, which provided an excellent inspection of the dorsal and ventral structures in the peritoneal cavity on the right and left sides. Standing laparoscopic ovariectomy using an electroligation modified method was considered a safe and effective method for hemostasis of the mesovarium, technically easy, time saving, and economical. The mean surgical time for bilateral ovariectomy was 40 ± 7.63, 60 ± 5.25, and 85 ± 6.43 minutes for electroligation-modified technique, ligating loops technique, and electrocoagulation technique, respectively.     

A proposal of clinical breakpoints for amoxicillin applicable to porcine respiratory tract pathogens

In the present position paper, an attempt was made to establish clinical breakpoints of amoxicillin to classify porcine respiratory tract pathogens as susceptible, intermediate or resistant based on their minimum inhibitory concentrations of amoxicillin. For this, a thorough review of the published literature with regard to swine-specific pharmacological data (including dosages of amoxicillin applied and routes of administration used), clinical efficacy, and in vitro susceptibility of the target pathogens was performed. Based on the comparative analysis of the results, the working group "Antibiotic Resistance" of the German Veterinary Medical Society (DVG) proposed to classify porcine respiratory tract pathogens that show MIC values of amoxicillin of < or =0.5microg/ml as "susceptible", those with MICs of 1microg/ml as "intermediate", and those with MICs of > or =2microg/ml as "resistant".     

Time-dependent recovery of Mycoplasma lipofaciens (strain ML64) from incubated infertile chicken eggs and dead in shell chicken embryos

Mycoplasmas are pathogens of different avian species, and they are able to be vertically transmitted. Even detected, Mycoplasma prevalence in raptor eggs is very low. In contrast to poultry, raptor eggs submitted for investigations are usually incubated. To investigate the influence of incubation length on the recovery of mycoplasmas from eggs, infertile specific-pathogen-free chicken eggs and embryos were infected with Mycoplasma lipofaciens (strain ML64), which had previously been isolated from an egg of a northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), in two different dosages. The eggs were investigated up to 12 days after infection (infertile eggs) or embryonic death. Mycoplasmas were recovered over the entire period after embryonic death by isolation. It was possible to re-isolate M. lipofaciens (strain ML64) from infertile eggs infected with 10(6) colony-forming units (CFUs) up to 12 days, but only up to 7 days if infected with 10(2) CFUs, which may be closer to the situation after natural infection. This study demonstrates that incubation of infertile eggs does have an influence on the recovery rate of mycoplasmas. This influence must be considered if interpreting results of Mycoplasma investigations in eggs of nonpoultry species. Additionally, it is recommended to use dead in shell embryos rather than infertile eggs for Mycoplasma detection.     

Growth performance,biochemical, cytological and molecular aspects of rabbits exposed to lead toxicity

Heavy metals have enormous variety of deleterious effects on many organs in the body. This study demonstrated the toxic influences of lead on the growth, biochemical, cellular and molecular aspects of developing rabbits. Seventy‐five rabbits (New Zealand NZW) were divided into five equal groups as follows; control (C) and four treatment groups (T1‐4) orally administered lead acetate solution as follow T1: 20, T2: 30, T3: 50 and T4: 70 mg/kg body weight. Lead resulted in a significant decrease in live body weight, daily body weight gain and feed intake in T3 and T4 compared to those in other groups. Blood haematology measurements such as red blood cells, haematocrit (HCT), mean corpuscular volume, platelet, white blood cells and lymphocytes were significantly influenced by the high level of lead. Oral administration of lead significantly reduced total proteins in the serum. It was observed that the high lead level led to significantly (p < 0.05) increased levels of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase enzymes, urea and creatinine. Four random amplified polymorphic DNA primers polymorphism were detected among the treatment groups. Total number of induced bands (loss or appearance) compared with control group were 4, 10, 10 and 14 bands using primers P1, P2, P3 and P4 respectively. Number of micronuclei showed a dose–response increase and the difference was highly significant especially between control compared with T3 and T4 groups. From our results, we can conclude that exposure of rabbits to lead acetate resulted in negative effects on the growth performance and altered the haematological and biochemical parameters, in addition to its adverse impact on cytological and molecular characterization of animals.     

Effect of bee pollen on growth performance,carcass traits,blood parameters,and the levels of metabolic hormones in New Zealand White and Rex rabbits

Tropical Animal Health and Production - The aim was to evaluate the effect of bee pollen (BP) on performance, blood parameters, and metabolic hormones in New Zealand White (NZW) and Rex (RX)...