Immunopathological Effect of Nano Zinc in Humoral Immune Response of Wistar Rats

Zinc is essential for daily life, though it is considered comparatively safe; but it is toxic at high levels and its immunopathological effects have not been documented. They enter in the cells and tissues and remain there and can cause immunopathological effect. Limited investigations have been carried on immunopathological effect of zinc nano particles on health and immunity of animals and man. Therefore, present study was designed to study the effect of zinc nano particles on humoral immune response in Wistar rats. To conduct this study, 35 rats of six week age were procured from IVRI Bareilly and divided into two groups of 20 rats in Group I (control) of 20 rats in Group II (treated) of 15 rats. The rats of treated group, were given nano zinc particles into stomach by oral gavaging for a period of 90 days and dose rate of nano zinc particles was selected based on NOAEL dose of nano zinc oxide 31.25 mg/kg body weight of rat. Humoral immune response was assessed by hemagglutination (HA) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays from the serum separated from blood of 5 rats from each group at 30th, 60th and 90th DPT. The antigen used was reconstituted commercial Ranikhet Disease Vaccine, R2B strain vaccine Mukteshwar (Indovax Pvt. Ltd., Hissar). There was increase in humoral immune response in treated group but the results were not significant statistically.