Effects of Threonine on Growth and Antibody Production in Chicks Infected with Newcastle Disease Virus

Abstract

MANY available protein sources are generally deficient in methionine, lysine, tryptophan and sometimes threonine. Cannon (1942) suggested that antibody production is dependent upon the intake of amino acids and it might be impaired by an inadequate intake of dietary protein. Since then there have been a few studies of the effects of deficiencies of individual amino acids on the immune response. Koyanagi and Ishiguro (1966) studied the effects of dietary tryptophan on gamma globulin production in rats. They reported that gamma globulin production was low in rats fed 0.08 or 0.10% tryptophan, but it increased with an increase in the level of tryptophan in the diet. In 1968, Ishiguro and Koyanagi reported that a diet containing 0.28% methionine showed 8.3% gamma globulin while it was 7.3% for rats fed 0.58% of methionine. Gill and Gershoff (1967) also reported that amounts of antibodies produced were increased by methionine deficiency and decreased…