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All animals protect themselves from invasion of microorganisms, parasites, fungi, viruses and any foreign molecules. This protective capacity is based on the effective immune system which is considered to be an important determinant of animal health and wellbeing. In that sense, a remarkable ability of components of the immune system to distinguish between self and non-self is a great achievement of animal evolution.

Commercial poultry production is based on balanced feed, providing requirements in major nutrients and optimised environmental conditions. However, it is very difficult to avoid various nutritional or environmental stresses which are responsible for immunosuppression and increased susceptibility to various diseases and as a result decreased productive and reproductive performance of birds. For example, mycotoxins are among the major immunosupressive agents in a poultry diet. In such situations immunomodulating properties of certain macro and micronutrients are of great importance for the poultry industry. Information has been actively accumulated for the past 10 years indicating that vitamin E, Se and carotenoids are among major immunostimulating agents and their requirements for such action are usually higher than those for bird growth and development.