United States Department of Agriculture, ARS, 2881 F&B Rd., College Station, TX 77845.
Cobb-Vantress, Inc., 4703 U.S. Highway 412 East, Siloam Springs, AR 72761.
Poult Sci. 2017 Jun 1;96(6):1623-1627. doi: 10.3382/ps/pew465.
Campylobacter spp. are the second leading cause of bacterial-induced foodborne illnesses with an estimated economic burden of nearly $2B USD per year. Most human illness associated with campylobacteriosis is due to infection by C. jejuni and chickens are recognized as a reservoir that could lead to foodborne illness in humans resulting from handling or consuming raw or undercooked chicken. We recently developed a novel breeding strategy based on identification and selection of chickens with an inherently high and low phenotype of pro-inflammatory mediators including IL-6, CXCLi2, and CCLi2, hereafter referred to as the high and low lines, respectively. We have shown the high line chickens are more resistant to the foodborne and poultry pathogens Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis, Eimeria tenella, and Clostridium perfringens-induced necrotic enteritis compared to the low line. The objective of this study was to determine whether the same trend of enhanced resistance in the high line birds was observed for C. jejuni. Birds were challenged at 2 d of age by oral gavage (0.5 mL) with 5 × 106 colony forming units (cfu) of C. jejuni/mL, necropsied 4 d post challenge, and cecal content collected to determine if there was a difference in C. jejuni resistance between the high and low line chickens. There were fewer (P = 0.01) chickens from the high line (28/40 = 71.8%) that were colonized by C. jejuni compared to the low line (37/39 = 94.9%). The amount of C. jejuni recovered from the ceca of infected birds was quantified; however, no differences were observed (P = 0.10). Since the high line birds were also more resistant to C. jejuni, it provides additional validation of selection based on pro-inflammatory mediators producing a line of chickens with increased natural resistance against diverse foodborne and poultry pathogens. The poultry industry is moving towards reduced therapeutics and, as such, our breeding strategy would be a viable method to incorporate into traditional poultry breeding programs.
空肠弯曲菌是细菌性食源性疾病的第二大主要病因，估计每年的经济负担接近 20 亿美元。大多数与弯曲菌病相关的人类疾病是由 C. jejuni 感染引起的，鸡被认为是一个储层，可能导致人类因处理或食用生的或未煮熟的鸡肉而发生食源性疾病。我们最近开发了一种新的育种策略，该策略基于鉴定和选择具有固有高和低炎症介质表型的鸡，包括 IL-6、CXCLi2 和 CCLi2，以下分别称为高和低品系。我们已经表明，与低线鸡相比，高线鸡对食源性病原体沙门氏菌肠炎亚种、柔嫩艾美耳球虫和产气荚膜梭菌诱导的坏死性肠炎更具抗性。本研究的目的是确定高线鸟类是否对空肠弯曲菌也表现出相同的增强抗性趋势。鸡在 2 日龄时通过口服灌胃（0.5 mL）接受 5×106 个空肠弯曲菌/ml 的集落形成单位（cfu）进行攻毒，攻毒后 4 天剖检，并收集盲肠内容物，以确定高线和低线鸡之间是否存在空肠弯曲菌抗性差异。与低线鸡（37/39=94.9%）相比，高线鸡（28/40=71.8%）中被空肠弯曲菌定植的鸡更少（P=0.01）。从感染鸡的盲肠中定量回收空肠弯曲菌；然而，未观察到差异（P=0.10）。由于高线鸡对空肠弯曲菌的抵抗力也更强，这为基于产生炎症介质的选择提供了额外的验证，产生了一种对多种食源性病原体和家禽病原体具有天然抗性增加的鸡系。家禽业正在朝着减少治疗的方向发展，因此，我们的育种策略将是一种可行的方法，可以纳入传统的家禽育种计划。
