Effects of oleanolic acid on acute liver injury triggered by lipopolysaccharide in broiler chickens

ABSTRACT

1. Infectious injury caused by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a metabolite of gram-negative bacteria, can induce stress responses in animals and is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in young birds. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with oleanolic acid (OA) on acute liver injury in broiler chickens challenged with LPS.

2. In total, 120 broiler chickens were randomly divided into six groups and fed a basal diet containing 0, 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg OA or 100 mg/kg aureomycin. On d 15, broiler chickens were injected with either LPS or an equivalent volume of normal saline. Six hours after LPS injection, two broiler chicks were randomly selected for sampling in each replicate.

3. The results indicated that dietary aureomycin was ineffective in alleviating LSP-associated liver injury, but protected broiler chickens from LPS-induced liver damage. This promoted a significant reduction in the levels of malondialdehyde and an increase in the levels of superoxide dismutase in liver. In addition, OA was found to cause significant reductions in the relative expression of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α in broiler liver tissues, whereas the relative expression of IL-10 was significantly increased.

4. In conclusion, oleanolic acid can alleviate oxidative stress and injury in the livers of broiler chickens induced by lipopolysaccharide. Consequently, oleanolic acid has potential utility as a novel anti-inflammatory and antioxidant feed additive.

KEYWORDS:

• Oleanolic acid
• broilers
• liver injury
• antioxidant
• lipopolysaccharide
• inflammation

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Rujing Cao, who contributed to the optimisation and refinement of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

WH, conceptualisation, methodology, and writing the original draft; WF, methodology and investigation; QZ, methodology and investigation; CX, data curation and visualisation; WC, resources; ND, supervision, writing review and editing, and funding acquisition.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2023.2251119.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 31972580], the China Agriculture Research System [CARS-35], the Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Heilongjiang Province [JQ2022C002] and the Support Project of Young Leading Talents of Northeast Agricultural University [NEAU2023QNLJ-017].