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For poultry farmers and quails' producers', one of the biggest challenges is dealing with natural diet contaminants like mycotoxins. Worldwide, mycotoxins are present in all feed sources, primarily in corn, and they significantly reduce the health, immune function, and performance of birds. For this purpose, the effect of citric acid (CA) supplementation on diet contaminated with Aflatoxins (AFL) was investigated in male Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix) through studying hepatic biochemical, histological, and ultrastructural changes. Influences of experimental diets were assessed in 3 replications of 6 birds each (n = 18 per treatment). Quails two weeks old were assigned into 4 equal groups. The control quails fed only basal diet, AFL group quails were given basal diet contaminated with 2.5 mg AFL/kg diet, citric group quails fed basal diet with 10 g citric acid/Kg, and AFL/citric group quails fed basal diet contaminated with 2.5 mg AFL /Kg and augmented with 10 g citric acid/Kg. After four weeks, feeding AFL to quails induced hepatotoxicity as evidenced by significant decline in body weight, serum albumin and total protein while it significantly increased serum ALT, and AST activities. AFL also induces liver oxidative stress by the elevation of lipid peroxidation and reducing GPx, ADH, SOD and catalase activities. Descriptive hepatic histological and ultrastructural alteration were also noted in the AFL group. Treatment with CA induced an increase in total protein, albumin, SOD, GPx, ADH and significantly decreased ALT and AST activities and MDA level. Moreover, it also improved the histological and ultrastructure alternations induced in the liver of AFL group. It was concluded that supplementation of CA into the AFL polluted diets lessened the adverse influences of AFL on quail's liver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being one of Egypt's most significant fish production resources, Lake Manzalah (Northeast Egypt) is subject to substantial inputs of pollution from domestic, agricultural and industrial sources. The liver and gonads of Oreochromis niloticus were evaluated for histological and ultrastructural alterations in the current study to monitor the possible effects of Lake Manzalah pollution at two different areas, (A) near Hadous drain and (B) near the Bahr El-Baqar drain during autumn and spring seasons. Heavy metal concentrations in water, sediment, and fish tissues were assessed. The results showed that Fe, Mn, and Ni levels were greater than the standard allowable values in area B compared to area A, and in autumn rather than spring. Both studied areas showed heavy metal deposition in O. niloticus tissues with greater values in autumn, compared to spring. The maximum concentration of the heavy metal in tissues was found in the fish liver of area (B) in autumn. In the autumn and area B, there were significant histopathological and ultrastructural damages to the liver and gonads. It was concluded that, the noted biomarker responses were possible indicators of health deterioration in Lake Manzalah fish populations. Long-term monitoring is therefore required to assess the eco-health of the Manzalah Lake ecosystem by using bio-indicator species such as Oreochromis niloticus, which offer accurate, dependable measures of environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]