Relative Disease Susceptibility and Clostridial Toxin Antibody Responses in Three Commercial Broiler Lines Coinfected with Clostridium perfringens and Eimeria maxima Using an Experimental Model of Necrotic Enteritis

Abstract

Necrotic enteritis is an enteric disease of poultry resulting from infection by Clostridium perfringens with coinfection by Eimeria spp. constituting a major risk factor for disease pathogenesis. This study compared three commercial broiler chicken lines using an experimental model of necrotic enteritis. Day-old male Cobb, Ross, and Hubbard broilers were orally infected with viable C. perfringens and E. maxima and fed a high-protein diet to promote the development of experimental disease. Body weight loss, intestinal lesions, and serum antibody levels against alpha-toxin and necrotic enteritis B-like (NetB) toxin were measured as parameters of disease susceptibility and host immune response. Cobb chickens exhibited increased body weight loss compared with Ross and Hubbard breeds and greater gut lesion severity compared with Ross chickens. NetB antibody levels were greater in Cobb chickens compared with the Ross or Hubbard groups. These results suggest that Cobb chickens may be more susceptible to necrotic enteritis in the field compared with the Ross and Hubbard lines.

Development of the Ileal Microbiota in Three Broiler Breeds

“…They focus on the responses of the three breeds to necrotic enteritis. In general, they have found that Cobb are more susceptible to necrotic enteritis than Ross and Hubbard, exhibiting increased body weight loss and more severe intestinal lesions (52). Hubbard appear to have an intermediary susceptibility to necrotic enteritis with Ross emerging as the most resistant.…”

High-throughput sequencing reveals differing immune responses in the intestinal mucosa of two inbred lines afflicted with necrotic enteritis

“…To date, many studies have used RNA-seq 19 technology for transcriptome analysis in mammals. However, this is the first time this technology 20 has been used to study host pathogen interaction in NE in the intestinal mucosa using two inbred 21 White Leghorn chickens differing NE susceptibility. In this study, we experimentally induced NE 22 using E. maxima and C. perfringens to identify differentially expressed mRNA in intestinal mucosa 23 of the chicken lines 6.3 and 7.2 which have been selected for their disparate susceptibility to 24 Marek's Disease (Briles et al, 1977).…”

“…Hierarchical Table S4). 20 Third, we analysed RNA-seq data to identify immune-related genes, which are biologically 21 important for the host response to antigens. Based on the differences in genetic background 22 between line 6.3 and line 7.2, it was expected that some immune-related genes would be 23 differentially expressed between the two inbred lines that show different levels of NE 24 susceptibility.…”

“…show different levels of NE susceptibility(Jang et al, 2013) with E. maxima and9 C. perfringens on intestinal gene expression using high-throughput mRNA sequencing10 (RNA-seq) technology. We generated draft sequences from two genetically different11 chicken lines with disparate MD phenotypes.…”

Clostridium perfringens: a review of the disease in pigs, horses and broiler chickens

“…This enteric infection is commonly well controlled by anticoccidials or antibiotic growth promoters, but the use of these compounds has been banned in animal feed in the European Union, and there is pressure to reduce their use worldwide because of the risk of multiple antimicrobial-resistant strains ( VAN IMMERSEEL et al, 2009). Thus, NE is re-emerging as an important disease in poultry, and there is concern about the increased risk of contamination of poultry products for human consumption, as C. perfringens is one of the most common causes of foodborne illness worldwide (NOWELL et al, 2010;CDC, 2012) Little is known about the susceptibility of poultry lines to NE; however, a recent study suggests that Cobb chickens are more susceptible to necrotic enteritis compared with Ross and Hubbard chickens (JANG et al, 2013). The disease occurs mostly in animals between 2-6 weeks of age and can vary from an acute to a subclinical form.…”