Reconsidering betaine as a natural anti-heat stress agent in poultry industry: a review

Abstract

Betaine is found ubiquitously in plants, animals, microorganisms, and rich dietary sources including seafood, spinach, and wheat bran. The chief physiological role of betaine is to function as a methyl donor and an osmolyte. Betaine also acts as an osmolyte, to maintain the avian's cellular water and ion balance to improve the avian's capacity against heat stress via preventing dehydration and osmotic inactivation. It helps in maintaining the protective osmolytic activity, especially in heat-stressed birds. Betaine may promote various intestinal microbes against osmotic variations and thus improve microbial fermentation activity. Previous studies showed that dietary supplementation of betaine in poultry diets could positively affect nutrients' digestibility, reduce abdominal fat weight, and increase breast meat yield. In addition, betaine has been reported to protect internal organs and boost their performance. Its inclusion in poultry diet is sparing essential amino acids like choline and methionine. In addition, it may play an important role in lean meat production by positively affecting the lipid metabolism with increased fatty acids catabolism and thus reducing carcass fat deposition. The aim of this review article was to broaden the knowledge regarding betaine and its importance in the poultry industry to cope with the heat stress problem. Moreover, it should be added to the diet as a natural anti-stressor through different routes (water/feed) to overcome the heat stress problem. However, further studies need to be conducted at the genetic and molecular basis to elucidate the mechanism behind the betaine as a natural anti-heat agent to decrease the heat stress problem in the poultry industry.

Secondary metabolites (SMs) of Isaria cicadae and Isaria tenuipes

“…5 Betaine (4) is a methyl donor of increasingly recognized signicance in biology, and serves as an organic osmolyte, which is a substance synthesized or taken up from the environment by cells for protection against osmotic stress, drought, high salinity, and high temperature. 44 Hercynine (5), a derivative of histidine, was detected in the mycelia, primordia and stroma of C. cicadae. 5 However, ergothioneine (6) was identied in its fruit body and mycelia.…”

The effect of Epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate on small intestinal morphology, antioxidant capacity and anti‐inflammatory effect in heat‐stressed broilers

“…Heat stress also caused the disorders of the antioxidant system (Habashy, Milfort, Rekaya, & Aggrey, 2018) and resulted in increased intestinal permeability to pathogens and endotoxins, which contribute to intestinal barrier breakdown and inflammatory response (Awad, Hess, & Hess, 2017;Dokladny, Zuhl, & Moseley, 2017). Up to now, many dietary manipulations, such as plant extracts (Liu, Li, Zhao, & Deng, 2018;Song et al, 2018), probiotic mixture (Song et al, 2014) and betaine (Saeed et al, 2017), were used to improve intestinal antioxidation property and barrier function of heat-stressed chicken.…”

Betaine and Antioxidants Improve Growth Performance, Breast Muscle Development and Ameliorate Thermoregulatory Responses to Cyclic Heat Exposure in Broiler Chickens

“…In broilers, BET supplementation improves villus morphology, including following coccidia infection [ 10 ]. While one study has been inconsistent [ 11 ], it has been proposed that BET protects against the effects of HS by ameliorating damage to the GIT [ 12 ]. As studies sought to explore the ideal dosage of BET added in broiler chickens’ diets, it has been established that growth performance improved with 0.5–2 g/kg added BET, and within the range of 0.5–1 g/kg, the increase in the improvement is proportional to the increase in the dosage of BET in the diets, with 1 g/kg being the most ideal dosage for such improvement; while BET 1–2 g/kg, albeit effective, did not improve growth performance any further than BET 1 g/kg did [ 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”