Study On Effects Of Artemisia Ordosica Aqueous Extract On Growth Performance,Immune And Antioxidative Function,and Its Toxicity In Mice

The experiment was conducted to study the effects of different addition levels of Artemisia ordosica aqueous extract(AOE)in diets on growth performance,immune and antioxidant function and to determine their toxicity and impact on physiological function of mice through the acute and chronic toxicity tests.The experiment was divided into three parts:In the first part of the experiment,30 four-week-old male mice were randomly divided into 5 treatment groups.The control group was fed the maintaining diet,and the other groupswere fed the maintaining diet respectively supplemented with 250,500,1000 and 2000 mg/kg AOE.The results showed that:(1)with increasing addition of AOE in diets,the apparent digestibility of calcium in mice showed a significant linear(P<0.01)or quadratic(P<0.05)increase,and the apparent digestibility of protein and phosphorus showed a quadratic increasing trend(0.05<P<0.1),however,other growth performance indexes and caecal microbial indexes were not affected.(2)with increasing addition of AOE in diets,serum IgM and IL-1 ? contents showed a significant linear and quadratic increase(P<0.01),and IgG content showed a significant linear increase(P<0.05).There was no effect on immune organ index.(3)with increasing addition of AOE in diets,the activity of T-SOD in serum of mice was increased linearly(P<0.05)or quadratically(P<0.01),and MDA content was quadratically decreased(P<0.05),in addition,T-AOC activity showed a significant linear or quadratic increase(P<0.01).The activity of T-SOD in intestinal tissue was quadratically increased(P<0.05),and MDA content tended to decrease quadratically(P=0.054).The MDA content in liver tissue showed a significant linear or quadratic decrease(P<0.05),and the activity of GSH-Px was quadratically increased(P<0.01).In the second part of the experiment,24 male mice at the age of 4 weeks were selected,which were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups with 6 replicates.The control group was not fed AOE and three treatment groups were fed respectively with 2,4,6 g AOE per kg of BW all at once.The results showed that there was no obvious abnormal state after the mice were administrated,and no mouse died during the period of intragastric administration.In the third part of the experiment,48 male mice were selected at the age of 4 weeks,which were randomly divided into the control group and 3 treatment groups(intragastric administration with AOE at 500,1000,2000 mg/kg · BW,respectively,lasting for 20 d).The results showed that,compared with the control group at the end of the experiment,each administration group had no significant difference in organ index,including the activity of alanine aminotransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,alkaline phosphatase as well as total bilirubin,total protein,albumin and creatinine content.Otherwise,the urea content showed an extremely significant linear or quadratic decrease(P<0.01).It is concluded that AOE had obvious positive effects on some growth performance,immune and antioxidative function of mice from the above results,and AOE had no toxicity but had significant positive effects on the excretion of urea.