Effect of various adjuvants on secondary immune response in chickens

Stimulatory effects of several types of adjuvants on secondary antibody response to inactivated Newcastle disease virus (iNDV) were examined in chickens. For this purpose, animals were primed with iNDV without adjuvant resulting in a low but significant antibody response, boosted with iNDV plus adjuvant 3 weeks later, and analysed for specific antibody titres in serum 3 weeks after the booster. Water-in-mineral oil emulsion (W/O) caused significant increase in antibody titres measured in an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA), haemagglutination inhibition (HI), and virus neutralisation (VN) assay. The adjuvants tested included three oil-in-water emulsions (i.e. mineral oil-in-water, sulpholipo(SL)-Ficoll400/squalane-in-water and sulpholipo-cyclodextrin/squalane-in-water), three negatively-charged polymers with high molecular weight (i.e. polyacrylate, polystyrenesulphonate and sulpho(S)-Ficoll400) and two surface-active agents (i.e. dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide (DDA) and Quil A). These adjuvants enhanced significantly the secondary immune response but none reached the titre obtained with W/O. Combinations of adjuvants with distinct physicochemical properties, i.e. polyacrylate and DDA revealed only slight, beneficial effects. We concluded that the various types of adjuvants tested can stimulate secondary immune responses in primed animals but that W/O is superior.