Biologia celular e do desenvolvimento
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The Chicken Egg: A “Nature’s Miracle”

Angel A Justiz Vaillant

The avian egg has great importance because is an important part of the human consumption. This paper provides the rational for the use of eggs in immunology and opens new horizons for future endeavours including the study of its strong immune system that protect the embryo. Chickens were vaccinated with several immunogens including viral and bacterial proteins and the titre of antibodies produced was assessed by several immunological techniques including staphylococcal protein-A (SpA) affinity chromatography, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs) and dot blot analysis. This study proved that immunizations of laying hens or oral administration of hyper-immune eggs produced an effective immune response against the viral and bacterial antigens used to protect the embryo and it makes a novel contribution in the field of the immunoglobulin Y (IgY) technology. The anti-SpA antibodies are important because they can be diagnostically used or employ in the therapy of S. aureus infections as antimicrobials. The anti-HIV antibody developed can be used as a chemical reagent in immunoassays to diagnose HIV infections.