Correlation among immunocompetence and economic traits in chicken

Abstract

The correlations within the various immunocompetence traits (antibody response to SRBCs, in-vivo response to Con-A, haemolytic complement level in serum) and economic traits (5th, 10th and 20th-week body weights, age at sexual maturity, egg weight at 24 weeks of age and egg number up to 40 weeks of age) were estimated as simple product moments correlation in a chicken population. The response in total HA titre showed a positive and significant correlation with response in MER antibody titre (0.442) and MES titre (0.519), while the correlation between response in MER antibody titre and MES antibody titre was found to be significant, but negative (-0.536). While haemolytic complement level in serum showed positive correlation with responses in MER antibody titre (0.276), it was negatively correlated with response in MES antibody titre (-0.34l) and both the correlations were significant. Other correlations among various immuno-competence traits were small and non-significant. None of the correlations between immune-competence traits and economic traits was significant statistically except that between CMI response to Con-A and egg number up to 40 weeks of age, which were negative (-0.360) in direction and moderate in magnitude.