Genomics and Applied Biology 2016, Vol.7, No.4, 1-8
1
Research Article Open Access
Variation and Repeatability of Natural Antibodies against Keyhole Limpet
Hemocyanin of Indigenous Chicken of Kenya
Khobondo J.O.
1
, Mwakubambanya R.
2
, Wasike, C.B.
3
, Kahi, A.K.
1
1. Animal Breeding and Genomics Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Egerton University, P.O. Box 536, 20115 Egerton Kenya
2. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Egerton University P.O. Box 536, 20115 Egerton Kenya
3. Department of Animal Science, Maseno University P.O. Box private Bag, 40105 Maseno Kenya
Corresponding author email
Genomics and Applied Biology, 2016, Vol.7, No.4 doi
Received: 18 Jan., 2016
Accepted: 23 Apr., 2016
Published: 21 Oct., 2016
Copyright
© 2016 Khobondo et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Khobondo J.O, Mwakubambanya. R, Wasike, C.B., and Upreti H.K., 2016, Variation and repeatability of natural antibodies against Keyhole limpet
hemocyanin of indigenous chicken of Kenya, Genomics and Applied Biology, 7(4): 1-8 (doi
Abstract
The immune system is designed to provide protection to the body by combating pathogens. Identifying animals with
superior immune responses reduces disease occurrences, increases farm profit and improves product quality and safety. Consequently,
there is need to breed disease resistant animals that will eliminate the danger of currently used disease management strategies; drug
prophylaxis and vaccination, which are unsafe and ineffective respectively. Studies aimed at investigating the mechanisms involved
in genetic resistance have been done, however a standardized biological parameter indicative of disease resistance or susceptibility
remains elusive. The objectives of the study were to determine presence and variation of IgA, IgG and IgM among indigenous
chicken. Estimate repeatability within the indigenous chicken over time of IgA, IgM and IgG natural antibody isotypes against
Keyhole limpet hemocyanin. Blood samples from 24 indigenous chickens of the same age and sex were collected four times within
three weeks. IgA, IgM and IgG titer values were measured by indirect ELISA from the sera. A mixed model with repeated measures
was performed to determine variation and repeatability. All the immunoglubulin isotypes binding KLH in chicken serum were
recorded. There was significant difference between isotypes concentrations with IgM and IgA being the lowest and highest titre
values, respectively. Repeatability was 0.68, 0.99 and 0.99 for IgM, IgG and IgA, respectively. The isotypes were detectable and
variable in serum of indigenous chicken and consistently and repeatedly measurable in blood serum. This finding may lay the basis
for genetic improvement of immune response in the indigenous chicken.
Keywords
Indigenous chicken, Repeatability, Natural antibodies, Variation
1 Introduction
Infectious diseases are of major importance to livestock breeders due to cost, potential zoonotic threats, animal
welfare issues, and threats arising from breakdown of currently used diseases’ control strategies. In the tropics,
predominant diseases vary between production systems which are mostly at risk. Endemic infectious diseases are
also problematic because traditional disease control strategies are failing. In such cases, alternative or
complementary sustainable control strategies such as breeding programs to increase host resistance to infection (or
disease) are required. For these reasons, disease resistance is now one of the major targets of genetic studies in
livestock aimed at conferring heritable ability to the animal to evade or withstand infection as a result of enhanced
innate and acquired immunity (Parmentier et al., 2004).
Innate immunity as the first line of defense plays an important role in preventing or combating infection
(Ternynck and Avrameas, 1986). Amongst the components of innate immunity are natural antibodies (Nab) of the
humoral arm which play an important role of combating diseases, augmenting immune response and
immunosenescence (Baumgarth et al., 2005; Elluru et al., 2008). Natural antibodies are present in nonimmunized
cattle (Van Knegsel et al., 2007), humans (Ehrestein et al., 2010), rats, rabbits, python (Ujvari et al., 2011) and
poultry (Sun et al., 2011). These antibodies do arise independent of known antigenic stimulation and do not
require prior antigenic stimulation. They are mostly polyreactive, polyspecific (Dimitrov et al., 2005), with low
binding affinity (Casali and Notkins, 1989) and generally encoded by the ummutated V genes in germline
