Evaluation of antibacterial activity of zinc oxide nanoparticles against avian mycoplasmosis with assessment of its impact on broiler chickens’ performance and health

Avian mycoplasmosis is a major hazard revealing severe economic losses in poultry industry all over the world (El-Naggar et al., 2022; Marouf et al., 2022a). Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma synoviae are the most abundant types attacking avian species resulting in financial losses in terms of decreased final weight, lowered egg production, and hatchability, increased embryonic mortality, increased carcass condemnation, high prophylaxis, and treatment costs (Yadav et al., 2022; Limpavithayakul et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2023). Given that mycoplasmas are difficult to isolate, and MIC assessments take a long time to produce results, most of the antimicrobial medications given to animals are typically empirical instead of being recommended based on actual susceptibility data (Gigueré, 2013; Ferguson-Noel et al., 2020; Qoraa et al., 2023a,b). Since a long time ago, chicken flocks have routinely utilized macrolides to treat respiratory conditions linked to MG and MS (Awad et al., 2022). Due to the continuous usage of macrolides for either the prophylaxis or the treatment of avian mycoplasmosis, recently some mycoplasma strains showed resistance to macrolides (Emam et al., 2020). As a result, monitoring MICs in mycoplasmas is therefore still essential for identifying anti-mycoplasma drug resistance development brought on by incorrect antimicrobial medication use (Bottinelli et al., 2022). Therefore, to overcome mycoplasma resistance new safe alternative approaches should be applied (Abd El-Hack et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2023). One of the routes to nanotechnology is the field of nanoparticles (NPs), which is connected to nanoscale materials with extremely small particle sizes ranging from 1 to 100 nm and because of their incredibly small size and high surface area to volume ratio, NPs have unique features that significantly differ from those of their bulk counterparts (Abd El-Ghany et al., 2021). Zinc oxide nanoparticles have attracted a lot of attention lately owing to their distinctive characteristics. Additionally, research has indicated that zinc is a crucial mineral for living creatures (Mohd Yusof et al., 2019; Lail et al., 2023). Zinc oxide nanoparticles have a wide range of antimicrobial activity against most pathogens, in this way, adding ZnO-NPs to poultry can enhance performance and growth while acting as a different antibacterial agent to prevent disease (Mohd Yusof et al., 2021; Yusof et al., 2023). Also, the antioxidant action of zinc and its involvement in the antioxidant defense system are two of its most important characteristics (Powell, 2000). Additionally, zinc is a component of numerous proteins involved in immunological defence mechanisms, hormone secretion routes, and intermediate metabolism (Sunder et al., 2008). Therefore, this work was designed to in vitro and in vivo evaluate the antimicrobial, antioxidantstatus of ZnO-NPs against MG and MS as well as study its effect on the performance, liver and kidney functions and blood indices of the broiler chickens.