ABSTRACT
Background: In nature, there are herbal extracts, while capable of reducing aflatoxin B1 in agricultural product by different mechanisms, may also act as growth promoters
Objectives: In this study, aqueous extract of T. daenensis was evaluated to detoxify contaminated feed with aflatoxin B1 and to determine the effect of growth promoters in Japanese quail
METHODS: To this purpose, at 24 d of age, quails were separated by sex and 80 male quails were randomly divided into experimental units with equal weight and number. The dietary treatments were as follows: 1. basal diet [B], 2. B + AFB1 [500 g/kg of feed], 3. B + aqueous extract of T. daenensis [2000 mg/kg of feed], 4. B + AFB1 [500 g/kg of feed] + aqueous extract of T. daenensis [2000 mg/kg of feed]. Feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and serum total protein were determined at day 45
Results: The results showed that aflatoxin significantly decreased feed intake, body weight gain and total blood protein but increased FCR [p<0.05]. The extract significantly increased feed intake and body weight gain, but decreased FCR [p<0.05]. The extract did not have any effect on total blood protein. There was an interaction effect between aflatoxin and extract [p<0.05], so that feed intake, body weight gain, FCR and total blood protein were improved in birds offered diet with aflatoxin and extract
Conclusions: According to the study, the extract has improved the performance in birds and the negative effect of aflatoxin on performance was significantly decreased in birds offered diet with the extract
ABSTRACT
Regarding the importance of finding new antibacterial drugs, screening of plants as a promising resource are now conducted worldwide. In this study, we report the application of a simple previously described method for screening of different plant seeds in order to find the best resources of plant antimicrobial peptides. Total water soluble protein of 10 different plant seeds were extracted and subjected to SDS-PAGE and subsequent agar-overlay bioassays. Standard strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecium and Escherichia coli were included in the bioassays. This method also was used for total proteins precipitated by Ammonium sulphate which ensure the protein nature of the test substances. Molecular size and the amounts of effective peptides were estimated using Tricin-SDS-PAGE and densitometry. Two different plant seeds showed noticeable antibacterial activities against tested Gram positive bacteria and a moderate inhibitory effect on Gram negative ones. Based on the results of Tricin-SDS-PAGE analysis which were carried out in parallel to bioassays, it was concluded that effective antibacterial substances are peptides with molecular weight of slightly larger than 5 kDa. On the basis of results of agar-overlay experiments and by screening of 10 different herbal seeds, we could introduce seeds of M. sativa L. and Onobrychis sativa Lam., as great sources of putative plant antibacterial peptides. The proposed screening method can be used for screening of large number of different plant seeds and even other parts of the plant body, regarding some necessary modification in total water soluble protein extraction steps