This study was carried out to evaluate the impacts of inclusion of two plant proteins (soybean meal or rocket meal) in the starter and growing –finishing diets fed with / without nano-chitosan for 500 one-day old broiler chicks on growth performance and serum parameters as well as expression patterns of target genes (PPARα,PPARγ and IGF-1) in liver tissue. A total of 220 chicks were randomly distributed into four treatment (five replications, each), and housed in a floor pen under hygienic conditions. The results indicated that birds fed 7.5% rocket seed meal (RSM) exhibited the best means of FBW, BWG and FCR. While, least feed intake with higher FBW and BWG was found in nano-chitosan fed birds. RSM fed chicks had a significant decrease in serum levels of TG, LDL, total lipids, AST and ALT with insignificant changes in serum albumin, total Cholesterol and HDL compared with the control group. Furthermore, significant increases in serum levels of IgG, IgM, IgA, CAT, TAC, SOD, T3, T4 and FSH were found in RSM fed birds as compared to the control group. Insignificant differences were noted in the fold changes of gene expression among the different experimental groups of chicks with regard toIGF-I and PPARα genes, but the RSM-diet insignificantly increased in the transcript level of the IGF-I gene and improved the IGF-1 gene expression. Our findings declared that RSM can be used in chicks diet up to 7.5 % singly or in combination with nano-chitosan without any adverse effect on performance, blood parameters and related gene expression in broiler chicks.