SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research Veterinary Medicine International Volume 2010, Article ID 485060, 5 pages doi:10.4061/2010/485060 Research Article The Immune Enhancement of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate in Chickens DaRong Cheng,1 ShanYuan Zhu,2 and HuaiChang Sun1 1 College of Veterinary Medicine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China 2 Department of Pharmacy, Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary College, Taizhou 225300, China Correspondence should be addressed to DaRong Cheng, jsyzcdr@yahoo.com.cn Received 27 August 2009; Revised 10 January 2010; Accepted 2 March 2010 Academic Editor: Maurice Pensaert Copyright © 2010 DaRong Cheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The purpose of this study is to investigate feasibility of sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (SLS) as an immunoadjuvant in chickens. After treating with 62.5, 125, 250, or 500 μg/mL SLS in vitro, lymphocyte proliferation assay of chicken peripheral blood mononuclear cells showed that the OD570 values of all experimental groups, as well as Con A-stimulated group, were signiﬁcantly higher than that of the untreated control group. After injection with 1.0, 2.0, or 4.0 mg/kg of SLS for 3 consecutive days, chickens were vaccinated with an attenuated vaccine against Newcastle disease virus (NDV), and the immunoadjuvant eﬀects of SLS were evaluated on the basis of immune organ index, antibody response, and CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio. The results conﬁrmed that SLS could enhance NDV- speciﬁc antibody response and increase CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio in vivo. Furthermore, SLS could improve NDV-speciﬁc antibody response in thiamphenicol-treated chickens. These data indicate that SLS not only can improve humoral immune response but also reverse the immunosuppressive eﬀect of thiamphenicol in chickens. 1. Introduction Houttuynia cordata thunb (Saururaceae, HC) is a therapeutic drug which has been used for the treatment of infections, allergy and cancers [1–9]. The major active component of the herb is houttuynin, which is present in the fraction of volatile oil with antimicrobial, antioxidative, antimuta- genic, and immunoadjuvant eﬀects [10–12]. The modiﬁed form of houttuynin, called sodium houttuyfonate (SH, C12H23NaO5S, MW 302.36), has potent immunoadjuvant eﬀects including promotion of phagocytosis and secretion of lysozyme, acidic phosphatase and IL-1β by macrophages [13–16]. To reduce the cytotoxicitic eﬀect of SH, sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (SLS, brand name is sodium new houttuy- fonate, SNH, C14H27NaO5S, MW 330.4, Figure 1) has been generated by additive reaction with houttuynin and sodium bisulﬁte, which has also been widely used for the treat- ment of infections, inﬂammation, anaphylaxis, and cancers [17, 18]. To investigate the feasibility of SLS as an immunoad- juvant for chickens, in this study lymphocyte prolifera- tion assay was performed using chicken peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in the presence of diﬀerent doses of SLS. Then, the in vivo immunoadjuvant eﬀect was conﬁrmed according to the immune organ index, antibody response, and CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio of the chickens vaccinated with an attenuated vaccine against Newcastle disease virus (NDV) with SLS or SLS plus thiamphenicol treatment. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Materials and Animals. 11-day-old unvaccinated local breed Shanhuang chickens were provided by the Jiangsu Institute of Poultry Science. 0.2% SLS in 0.85% sodium chloride solution was provided by the Animal Pharma- ceutical Center, Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veteri- nary College. Ficoll-paque lymphocyte separation medium (5.7% (w/v) ﬁcoll 400, 9.0% (w/v) sodium diatrizoate, and D = 1.077 ± 0.002) was from Shanghai Huajing Bio-tech Company Limited. RPMI 1640 medium was the product of GIBCO (USA). Fetal calf serum (FCS) was purchased from Hangzhou Sijiqing Biological Engineer- ing Materials Company Limited. Concanavalin A (Con A), methylthiazolyldiphenyl-tetrazolium MTT bromide, and