G. Leitner et al., PARENTAL EFFECT ON THE HUMORAL IMMUNE-RESPONSE TO ESCHERICHIA-COLI AND NEWCASTLE-DISEASE VIRUS IN YOUNG BROILER CHICKS, Poultry science, 73(10), 1994, pp. 1534-1541
Genetic and environmental variables influence animal resistance to dis
ease infection. In addition, maternal effects were also found in studi
es with egg-type chicken lines. In our laboratory, meat-type chicken l
ines were divergently selected for either early or late maturation of
the immune system, based on family and individual antibody responsiven
ess at 10 d of age. The high-antibody (HC) and low-antibody (LC) lines
differed significantly in the early immune response to Escherichia co
li, to Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccination, and to several other
immune functions. Reciprocal crosses between the HC and LC lines were
performed over 2 yr at three different locations. Immune responses to
E. coli and NDV vaccination provided separate estimates of maternal a
nd paternal effects. Dam effect on immune response to E. coli vaccine
was significantly larger than sire effect; the antibody titer in both
reciprocal crosses was intermediate between the parental lines, but th
e mean titer of the HC x LC cross was significantly lower than that of
the LC x HC cross. Similar, but not significant, ranking of crosses w
as observed for the response to NDV. Evidently, the level of the offsp
ring humoral immune response was more a dam than a sire effect.