Interdigital skin test for evaluation of delayed hypersensitivity and monitoring cell-mediated immune responses in chickens

A skin test to assess cell mediated delayed hypersensitivity (DH) used to evaluated immune response of chickens. Results of many study indicated, that skin testing is especially useful as a simple in vivo screening to evaluate normal and suppressed T-cell mediated DH. Chickens were sensitized with using mitogens, B and T-cell dependent antigen by intradermal injection. The most feathered skin of chickens is too thin for adequate intradermal injections, so the wattle is the standard site for skin testing, however, in younger than 2 or 3 weeks old chickens, the wattle is undeveloped and intradermal injection and measurement of response are difficult. A simple interdigital skin used by many of the authors. Skin swelling response and DH reaction were measured in mm before injections and after. The skin test and DH in vivo results edemas-initiating characteristics of sensitizing agents, which increase in skin thickness detectable after 4- 6 hours of application. Many of investigation results suggests that healthy chickens are able to have strong immune response and support the concept that some changes in the cell-mediated immune response and other pathogens may potentially affect immune response.