Folate carrying peptides to improve innate immunity of laying hens

在加拿大，经常报告食品（家禽产品、沙拉）中的细菌爆发，严重威胁到消费者的健康和福祉。这些疫情往往导致住院治疗，并由于浪费食物和卫生资源而造成严重的经济损失。家禽产品（蛋和肉）是加拿大消费最多的产品之一，鸡群的健康至关重要，与健康食品的生产直接相关。随着最近禁止在动物生长中使用抗生素，加拿大家禽养殖户正在努力寻找替代方法来确保动物健康，从而确保家禽产品的质量。实现这一目标的一个简单而有效的方法是通过提供营养丰富的饲料来改善鸡的饮食。然而，研究表明，单纯增加鸡饲料中的营养物质（如叶酸）并不能提高鸡血液中的叶酸水平，对鸡的免疫力也没有显著影响，这可能是由于鸡饲料中的维生素随着时间的推移而流失，或者是由于它们在肠道中的吸附能力差。叶酸是一种重要的维生素，不仅对鸡的免疫支持很重要，而且对人体健康也很重要。叶酸丰富的饮食对成长中的孩子和孕妇尤其重要，在神经发育中起着关键作用。本课题拟以小肽为载体，提高鸡日粮中叶酸的稳定性及其在鸡肠中的吸收。鸡肠对叶酸的吸收有望提高鸟类对微生物感染的免疫力，并为人类提供富含叶酸的饮食。

The bacterial outbreaks in food products (poultry products, salads) are frequently reported in Canada and are grave threat to consumer's health and wellbeing. These outbreaks often cause hospitalization and lead to severe economic losses due to waste of food and health resources. Poultry products (eggs and meat) are one of the most consumed products in Canada and health of chicken flocks are critical and are directly linked to the production of healthy food products. With recent ban in antibiotics use for animal growth, Canadian poultry farmers are struggling to find alternative methods to ensure animal health and hence the quality of poultry products. One simple and effective method to achieve this is to improve the diet of chickens by providing nutrient rich feed. However, the research shows that simple increase in nutrient (such as folate) in chicken feed does not improve the folate levels in chicken blood and has no significant effect on chicken immunity, possibly due to the loss of vitamins overtime in chicken diet or due to their poor adsorption in the gut. Folate is one of the key vitamins that is not only important for chicken immune support but is also key nutrient for human health. Folate rich diet is especially important for growing kids and pregnant females and plays key role in neural development. In this project, we intend to improve the stability of folate in chicken diet and its absorption in chicken intestines usingsmall peptides as carriers. The absorption of folate in chicken intestine is expected to improve the immunity of birds against microbial infections and will provide folate rich diet for human consumption.