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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1554502
Effects of lactobacillus acidophilus on production performance and immunity of broiler chickens and their mechanism
Provisionally accepted
Jinmei Liu 1,2
Hongxia Gu 3 Rui Jia 2 Shuzhen Li 2
Zhimin Chen 2
Aijuan Zheng 2
Wenhuan Chang 2*
Guohua Liu 2*- 1 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Beijing, China
- 2 Key Laboratory for Feed Biotechnology, Feed Research Institute (CAAS), Beijing, China
- 3 Biological Feed Research Center, Beijing, China
Lactobacillus species have attracted more and more attention as a potential antibiotic substitute for human health and animal production due to their remarkable antibacterial effects. However, the underlying mechanism is unclear. This experiment's goal was to investigate the impacts of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) on the growth performance, carcass characteristics, immune function of broiler chickens and their mechanism. One hundred and eighty 1-day-old AA broilers were used and randomly allocated into 3 treatment groups with 6 replicates of 10 chickens per replicate. The 3 treatment groups were control group (CK), L. acidophilus added group (LAB-E, 1.0×108CFU/kg) for the first 7 days; L. acidophilus added group (LAB-A, 1.0×108CFU/kg) for the whole experimental period. Broilers had free access to water and feed. The results showed that addition of L. acidophilus for the whole experimental period significantly decreased ADFI, FCR and the abdominal fat percentage of broilers (P<0.05), tended to increase the levels of IgG in broiler serum (P=0.093). The LAB-A group had higher HDL-C content and IL-2, IL-4 content, and lower level of LPS in broiler serum compared to the controls (P<0.05). In conclusion, L. acidophilus improved feed efficiency and immune function of broilers by controlling nutrient metabolism and inflammation responses of broilers. L. acidophilus can be used as a potential substitute for antibiotics in broiler production.
Keywords: Lactobacillus acidophilus, broiler chicken, growth performance, Carcass characteristics, Immunity
Received: 02 Jan 2025; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Gu, Jia, Li, Chen, Zheng, Chang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wenhuan Chang, Key Laboratory for Feed Biotechnology, Feed Research Institute (CAAS), Beijing, 100081, China
Guohua Liu, Key Laboratory for Feed Biotechnology, Feed Research Institute (CAAS), Beijing, 100081, China
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