Intestinal integrity, oxidative stress, and immune competence of broilers exposed to heat stress and supplemented with Zn amino acid complex To determine the effect of zinc-amino acid complex (ZnAA; Availa Zn) dietary supplementation on intestinal integrity, oxidative metabolism and performance of broilers raised under chronic cyclic heat stress, two experiments were designed; Experiment 1 was divided in two identical trials repeated over time to assess biological parameters and Experiment 2 consisted of a floor pen trial to determine performance results. For both trials of Experiment 1 the treatments followed a 4 × 2 factorial arrangement, including four levels of supplemental ZnAA (0, 20, 40 and 60mg/kg diet) and two environmental conditions (thermoneutral-TN-and a chronic cyclic heat stress-HS). The dietary treatments were applied from placement. At 21d of age, a total of 12 birds per treatment combination were randomly allotted to three battery cages in environmentally controlled rooms. TN temperature was 24 °C and HS was set to depart 9 °C. For Experiment 2, 1,800 broiler chicks were allotted into 4 treatments (levels of ZnAA) in 10 replicates of 45 birds each. All chicks used were males from Cobb 500 strain. The unsupplemented diet (0 mg ZnAA/kg) was based on corn, soybean meal, and soybean oil and was adequate in all nutrients, except Zn. As for Experiment 1, birds were fed dietary treatments from placement and heat stress protocol started at 21d of age and lasted 21 days. All the assessments were performed at 42d. HS impaired virtually all parameters assessed. HS resulted in increased body temperature and respiratory frequency; worsened performance and immunological parameters; increased oxidation products and antioxidant enzyme activity in blood (erythrocyte), liver and intestine (jejunum); impaired histomorphometry parameters as well as gut integrity. Dietary ZnAA supplementation proved to be an excellent tool for broilers under oxidative stress (caused by heat stress). It has linearly improved body weight and feed conversion ratio; linearly improved bursa relative weight and gammaglobulins quantification; linearly decreased oxidation products in blood and liver; quadratically increased antioxidant capacity in blood and influenced histomorphometric parameters differentially for thermoneutral or heat stressed birds. Under heat stress, ZnAA improved gut integrity measured by FITC-d and enhanced occludin and ZO-1 proteins quantification (Western Blot analysis). In the performance assessment (Experiment 2), supplemental ZnAA linearly increased body weight and body weight gain for the total experimental period (1 to 42). The HS treatment applied in this study has revealed to be a model of gut barrier disruptor and ROS (reactive oxygen species) generator. ZnAA supplementation, in turn, showed potential to improve immune competence of broilers raised under both environmental conditions tested, to diminish the effects of oxidative stress and improve intestinal integrity measured by FITC-d and quantification of ...