Nutritional and Immunopotentiating Function of Methionine for Poultry

Author(s): Nour Ramadan, Houssam Shaib, Mohamad Farran

As an essential nutrient and a first limiting amino acid in several meal-based poultry diets, methionine (Met) is of rich nutritional value and physiological functions. Methionine’s multiple functions include but not limited to protein synthesis, feather development, and protection from oxidative stress, methylation of DNA reactions as well as several distinct molecules. Methionine is suggested to play an influential role in both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. This is vital as the immune system prospers immensely from adequate nutrition, constituting of a balanced diet with supplementation of certain essential nutrients. Methionine’s immunopotentiating roles include detoxification, increasing humoral immune response, stimulation of the phagocytic activity of leukocyte, triggering serum lysozyme activity, and resistance for coccidia infection. These functions increase immune responses during stress cycles and disease outbreaks in poultry and other animals. Additional research is recommended to elucidate the role of the host genetic makeup involvement in the relationship between methionine and other disease factors.