Potential immune modulating properties and antioxidant activity of supplementing commercially available lactoferrin and/or Lactobacillus sp. in healthy Ossimi lambs.

The use of lactoferrin (LF) and/or lactobacillus sp. (LB) to improve animal health and pro- duction has increased recently. However, information regarding the immune-modulatory role of LB supplementations either alone or in combination with LF in sheep remains unclear. There- fore, the present study was designed to evaluate the immune modulating properties and the anti- oxidant activity of supplementing commercially available LF and/or LB in healthy lambs. For this reason, twenty-four apparently healthy Ossimi lambs were used. After three weeks of acclimati- zation, the lambs were randomly allocated to four equal-sized groups and assigned to receive one of the following supplements: LB at a dose of ~ 1 g active ingredient/head (group 1), LF at a dose rate of 0.5 gm /head (group 2), a combination of both treatments using the same dosing regimens (group 3), and (group 4) received only 10 mL of isotonic saline and was considered as a control group. All supplements were given orally twice daily for 30 consecutive days. Blood sam- ples were collected from each lamb before starting the experiment (T0) and two weeks (T15), and four weeks (T30) after giving supplements for hematological examinations, serum biochemical analyses, and RT-PCR assays. Our findings demonstrated that lambs receiving LB showed statis- tically significant (P⟨0.05) higher values of total leucocytes, lymphocytes and lysozyme activi- ty than those receiving LF. In contrast, lambs that received LF had significantly (P⟨ 0.05) higher values of serum catalase, nitric oxide and GSH with a significantly lower MDA level compared with those supplemented with LB. A combination of LF and LB supplementation elicited maxi- mal up-regulation of Tollip, TLR4, IL-5, and IL-6 gene expression compared with other groups. The results suggest that bovine LF and or LB could be used as useful nutritional supple- ments to support the immune system in healthy lambs. Copyright© by the Polish Academy of Sciences.