Influence of inoculation dose, inoculation schedule, chicken age, and host genetics on disease susceptibility and development of resistance to Eimeria tenella infection.

Various parasite- and host-related factors influencing disease susceptibility and development of protective immunity against Eimeria tenella infection were investigated in two inbred strains of chickens. Chickens that received a primary inoculation of 10(3), 10(4), or 10(5) oocysts showed a significant reduction in packed cell volume and produced significantly more oocysts than chickens inoculated with fewer oocysts. Younger chickens were as susceptible as older chickens to identical parasite doses. However, upon a secondary inoculation 5 weeks following primary inoculation, FP chickens 1 to 21 days old at the time of primary inoculation developed resistance to reinfection, whereas SC chickens less than 3 weeks old at the time of primary inoculation were highly susceptible to secondary infection. Flow cytometric analysis of spleen lymphocytes showed a substantial reduction in T-cell number in 1-day-old SC but not FP chickens. Furthermore, 1-week-old SC chickens showed depressed mitogenic responses to concanavalin A compared with 1-week-old FP chickens. There was no significant difference between SC and FP chickens in speen B-cell number, regardless of age.