One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse the
data. When ANOVA identified differences among groups, a multiple
comparisons (Tukey’s) test was conducted to examine significant
differences among treatments using the SAS computer software(SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA). Before the analysis, percent data
(from the growing-out, susceptibility, and phagocytic activity
assays) were normalized by arcsine-transformation. Statistically
significant differences required that p < 0.05.