4th International Poultry Meat Congress

O 37 Nutritional Modulation of Antioxidant System In Poultry:
New developments with selenium on Hatching and Embriyonic
Developmment
Peter F. Surai 1-5 * and Vladimir .I. Fisinin 5-6
1
Trakia University, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, 2 Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary,
3
Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine, 4 Odessa National Academy of Food
Technologies, Ukraine, 5 Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia, 6 All Russian Institute
of Poultry Husbandry, Sergiev Posad, Russia.
Introduction
Commercial poultry production is associated with various stresses leading to decrease of productive
and reproductive performance of growing chickens, parent birds as well as commercial
layers. Growing body of evidence indicates that most of stresses in poultry production at the
cellular level are associated with oxidative stress due to excess of free radical production or
inadequate antioxidant protection. Recently, a concept of the cellular antioxidant defence has
been revised with a special attention paid to cell signalling. Indeed, in animals, redox signaling
pathways use reactive oxygen species (ROS) to transfer signals from different sources to the
nucleus to regulate a number of various functions including growth, differentiation, proliferation
and apoptosis (Surai and Fisinin, 2016b; 2016c;2016d;2016e).
Stresses in poultry production
From a physiological point of view, stress is related to a deviation from optimal internal and
external conditions. Under stressful conditions, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the autonomic
nervous system and the immune system are responsible for re-establishing homeostasis.
Therefore, a cascade of regulatory mechanisms are involved, resulting in a mobilization of energy
and a shift in metabolism with detrimental effects on growth performance and feed efficiency.
In modern commercial poultry production oxidative stress-related nutritional metabolic diseases
(e.g. encephalomalacia, exudative diathesis, muscular dystrophy, etc.) practically disappeared
(Surai, 2002; 2006), however, various disorders of the biological antioxidant defence system
still causing substantial problems. For example, the amount of a particular nutrient in the diet
may be insufficient to meet the requirements, the diet may contain substances that inactivate
the nutrient or inhibit its absorption/utilisation, or metabolism may be upset by the interaction
of dietary and environmental factors causing oxidative stress. Domestication and genetic
selection based on rapid growth rates, better feed conversion, and heavier BW of broilers has
made domestic birds, including broilers and turkey, particularly susceptible to oxidative stress.
In general, there are four major types of stress in poultry industry: technological, environmental,
nutritional and internal stresses (Surai and Fisinin, 2016b). It seems likely that heat and diet
are among main means causing oxidative stress in domestic birds that may lead to biological
damage, serious health disorders, lower growth rates, and, hence, economic losses. Therefore,
dietary antioxidants are considered to be the main protective means to deal with various stresses
in poultry production
215