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Review
. 2022 May 26:9:906084.
doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.906084. eCollection 2022.

Impacts of Heat Stress on Rabbit Immune Function, Endocrine, Blood Biochemical Changes, Antioxidant Capacity and Production Performance, and the Potential Mitigation Strategies of Nutritional Intervention

Zi-Long Liang  1 , Fan Chen  1 , Sungkwon Park  2 , Balamuralikrishnan Balasubramanian  2 , Wen-Chao Liu  1
Affiliations
Review

Impacts of Heat Stress on Rabbit Immune Function, Endocrine, Blood Biochemical Changes, Antioxidant Capacity and Production Performance, and the Potential Mitigation Strategies of Nutritional Intervention

Zi-Long Liang et al. Front Vet Sci. .

Abstract

Heat stress has become a widespread concern in the world, which is one of the major environmental stressors and causes substantial economic loss in the rabbit industry. Heat stress leads to multiple damages to the health of rabbits, such as organ damage, oxidative stress, disordered endocrine regulation, suppressed immune function and reproductive disorders, ultimately, induces the decreased production performance and increased mortality. Nutritional approaches, including feeding strategies, adjusting feed formula, and supplementing vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, Chinese herbal medicines, and functional active substances to the feed, were reported to mitigate the detrimental effects of heat stress in rabbits. Therefore, elucidating the damage of heat stress to rabbits; proper management and nutritional approaches should be considered to solve the heat stress issue in rabbits. This review highlights the scientific evidence regarding the effects of heat stress on rabbit's immune function, endocrine, blood biochemical changes, antioxidant capacity and production performance, and the potential mitigation strategies of nutritional intervention to alleviate heat stress in rabbits; which could contribute to develop nutritional strategies in relieving heat stress of rabbits.

Keywords: heat stress; immune function; mitigation strategy; nutritional intervention; production; rabbit; redox status.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Challenges and opportunities for the rabbit industry in the context of global warming-induced heat stress.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effects of heat stress on antioxidant capacity and related signaling pathway of rabbits. (A) Thermoneutral temperature. (B) Heat stress. (C) Nrf pathway-Induction of oxidative stress.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summarize the impacts of heat stress on rabbits.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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