Salmonella Enteritidis causes fowl paratyphoid in poultry and is frequently associated to outbreaks of food-borne diseases in humans. The role of flagella and flagella-mediated motility into host-pathogen interplay is not fully understood and requires further investigation. In this study, one-day-old chickens were challenged orally with a wild-type strain Salmonella Enteritidis, a non-motile but fully flagellated (SE ΔmotB) or non-flagellated (SE ΔfliC) strain to evaluate their ability to colonise the intestine and spread systemically and also of eliciting gross and histopathological changes. SE ΔmotB and SE ΔfliC were recovered in significantly lower numbers from caecal contents in comparison with Salmonella Enteritidis at early stages of infection (3 and 5 dpi). The SE ΔmotB strain, which synthesises paralysed flagella, showed poorer intestinal colonisation ability than the non-flagellated SE ΔfliC. Histopathological analyses demonstrated that the flagellated strains induced more intense lymphoid reactivity in liver, ileum and caeca. Thus, in the present study the flagellar structure and motility seemed to play a role in the early stages of the intestinal colonisation by Salmonella Enteritidis in the chicken.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now a major global problem largely resulting from the overuse of antibiotics in humans and livestock. In some AMR bacteria, resistance is encoded by conjugative plasmids expressing sex-pili that can readily spread resistance through bacterial populations. The aim of this study was to use sex pilus-specific (SPS) phage to reduce the carriage of AMR plasmids. Here, we demonstrate that SPS phage can kill AMR Escherichia coli and select for AMR plasmid loss in vitro . For the first time, we also demonstrate that SPS phage can both prevent the spread of AMR Salmonella Enteritidis infection in chickens and shift the bacterial population towards antibiotic sensitivity.

-The present study examined the effect of aflatoxin (AFB 1 ) and fumonisin (FB 1 ) at the levels of 2 mg kg −1 AFB 1 and 100 mg kg −1 FB 1 and the efficiency of use of different levels of adsorbent based on sodium and calcium aluminosilicate on growth performance, hematological parameters, and biochemical parameters of broilers. A total of 1,440 Cobb broilers were distributed into the following treatments: positive control (PC) -no mycotoxin and adsorbent (AD); PC+3AD -no mycotoxin, with 3 g kg −1 adsorbent in feed; negative control (NC) -only mycotoxin; NC+1AD -with mycotoxin and 1 g kg −1 adsorbent in feed; NC+2AD -with mycotoxin and 2 g kg −1 adsorbent in feed; and NC+3AD -with mycotoxin and 3 g kg −1 adsorbent in feed. The amounts of AFB 1 and FB 1 added to NC reduced weight gain (35%) and feed intake (50%) compared with PC; however, inclusion of 2 or 3 g kg −1 adsorbent to NC alleviated such losses. Birds fed NC showed anemia, immunosuppression, and impaired liver function, observed by reduced cholesterol and increased gamma glutamyl-transferase activity compared with PC; values returned to normal levels when 2 or 3 g kg −1 of the adsorbent (as fed) were used. Mycotoxins cause adverse effects on most of the parameters studied, and the use of adsorbent at the levels of 2 and 3 g kg −1 of the adsorbent as fed partially negates the adverse effect of mycotoxicosis.

Piper cubeba is an Asian pepper used in popular medicine for its known antimicrobial, antiparasitic, and anti-inflammatory actions. The study evaluated the effects of dietary inclusion of Piper cubeba ethanolic extract (PE) as a replacement for anantibiotic growth promoter (AGP) on the performance and biochemical serum profile of 1-to 21-d-old broilers (Cobb ®). Two hundred one-d-old broilers were housed in experimental battery cages and distributed in a completely randomized design. The following treatments were applied: negative control (NC)-basal diet; positive control (PC)-basal diet with addition of AGP; and the basal diet with inclusion of 0.17%, 0.34%, and 0.52% of PE (NCE1, NCE2, and NCE3, respectively). Growth performance, biochemical serum profile and internal organ weights were evaluated. Birds fed the AGP presented higher feed intake compared with the other treatments (p<0.05). The PC, NC, and NCE1 treatments presented higher weight gain compared with those fed NCE2 and NCE3 (p<0.05). The NC, NCE1, and NCE2 diets promoted better feed conversion ratio than the PC and NCE3 (p<0.05). Lower triglyceride serum levels were determined in broilers fed the NC and NCE1 diets. Amylase serum levels were lower in NCE1 and NCE2 treatments compared with the NC (p<0.05), whereas those obtained with the PC and NCE3 diets were not different (p>0.05) from the others. Organ relative weights were not influenced by the treatments. The inclusion of 0.17% of PE did not compromise the growth performance, biochemical serum profile or organ relative weights of 21-d-old broilers.

Brazil is considered as a great broiler feet exporter, especially for the Chinese trade. Contact lesions at the tibiotarsal region are responsible for economic losses and there is no model for its classification, thereby this study presents a fast and practical grade system to be used in the poultry industry and proposes these lesion characterizations into three different grades. For this, correlation was made between macroscopic, histological findings and microbiological quantification ( Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp. and sulphite-reducing clostridia) from contact lesions in the tibiotarsal region of 112 broiler carcasses, divided in four groups (n=28), accordingly to the lesion’s intensity. There were no significant differences in microbiological quantification among the groups (p>0.05) except for the grade 3 group, as grade 1 and 2 lesions were in the early stages and histopathological changes such as ulceration were not observed. In grade 3 lesion group, it was observed bacterial cocci grume and ulceration at the articular region and significantly higher microbiological count (p<0.05) for E. coli and Staphylococcus spp. In conclusion, the visual standard proposed in this work, correlated and confirmed by the histopathologic, and microbiologic characterization, allows to precise and fast ascertainment of the contact lesion grade in the tibiotarsal regions of broiler carcasses. Moreover, it should be highlighted that grades 1 and 2 alterations are not caused by an inflammatory process caused by pathogenic agents and should not be considered a public health risk.