Dataset Information

Gene expression profiling within the spleen of Clostridium perfringens-challenged broilers fed antibiotic-medicated and non-medicated diets.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Clostridium perfringens (Cp) is a Gram-positive anaerobic bacterium that causes necrotic enteritis (NE) in poultry when it overgrows in the small intestine. NE disease has previously been controlled through the use of growth-promoting antibiotics. This practice was recently banned in European countries, leading to significantly increased incidence of NE threatening the poultry industry. Control strategies and technology as substitutes to dietary antibiotics are therefore urgently required. To develop the substitutes, it is important to understand host immune responses to Cp infection. However, the knowledge is still lacking. We therefore investigated gene expression profiles within immunologically-relevant tissue, the spleen, in order to identify factors that are involved in immunity to NE and have potential as therapeutic targets. RESULTS: Use of a 44 K Agilent chicken genome microarray revealed significant up-regulation of many immune-associated genes in Cp-challenged chickens, including galectin 3, IFNAR1, IgY-receptor, TCR gamma, granzyme A, and mannose-6-P-R, which were subsequently validated by quantitative PCR assays. Functional annotation of differentially expressed genes was conducted using the High Throughput Gene Ontology Functional Annotation database. Medicated and Non-medicated chickens had similar annotation profiles with cell activities and regulation being the most dominant biological processes following Cp infection. CONCLUSION: Broiler chickens demonstrated an intricate and holistic magnitude of host response to Cp challenge and the development of NE. Although the influence of dietary antibiotics appeared to be less significant than the disease process, both had a considerable impact on the host response. Markers previously identified in intestinal inflammatory diseases of other species, including humans, and indicators of enhanced antibody responses, appeared to be involved in the chicken response to Cp challenge. The significance in host immune responses of immune mediators identified from the present study warrants further studies to verify their functions during NE development and to determine their potential application to control NE disease.

SUBMITTER: Sarson AJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2703656 | biostudies-literature | 2009

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Gene expression profiling within the spleen of Clostridium perfringens-challenged broilers fed antibiotic-medicated and non-medicated diets.

Sarson Aimie J AJ Wang Ying Y Kang Zhumei Z Dowd Scot E SE Lu Yang Y Yu Hai H Han Yanming Y Zhou Huaijun H Gong Joshua J

BMC genomics 20090607

<h4>Background</h4>Clostridium perfringens (Cp) is a Gram-positive anaerobic bacterium that causes necrotic enteritis (NE) in poultry when it overgrows in the small intestine. NE disease has previously been controlled through the use of growth-promoting antibiotics. This practice was recently banned in European countries, leading to significantly increased incidence of NE threatening the poultry industry. Control strategies and technology as substitutes to dietary antibiotics are therefore urgen ...[more]

PMID: 19500416

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Project description:Clostridium perfringens (CP) is the principal pathogenic bacterium of chicken necrotic enteritis (NE), which causes substantial economic losses in poultry worldwide. Although probiotics are known to provide multiple benefits, little is known about the potential effects of Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) application in preventing CP-induced necrotic enteritis. In this study, 450 male Arbor Acres broilers were divided into 5 experimental treatments: A: basal diet (control group); B: basal diet and CP challenge (model group); C: CP challenge+10 mg/kg enramycin (positive control group); D: CP challenge+4 × 107 CFU/kg of feed B. subtilis PB6 (PB6 low-dosage group); and E: CP challenge+6 × 107 CFU/kg of feed B. subtilis PB6 (PB6 high-dosage group). There were 6 replicate pens per treatment with 15 broilers per pen. The present research examined the effect of Bacillus subtilis PB6 (B. subtilis PB6) on growth performance, mRNA expression of intestinal cytokines and tight junctions, and gut flora composition in broilers challenged with CP. The entire experiment was divided into two phases: the non-CP challenge phase (d0–18) and the CP challenge phase (d18–26). PB6 did not increase the growth performance during the first stage, but the PB6 high-dosage group was found to have larger body weight gain and ADFI during the CP challenge stage. Feed supplementation with PB6 reduced the lesion score of challenged chicks, with increased tight junction-related gene expression (occludin and ZO-1) and decreased TNF-α expression compared with CP-infected birds. A decrease in the abundance of Clostridium XI, Streptococcus, and Staphylococcus was observed after CP infection (P < 0.05), while supplementation with PB6 restored the ileal microbial composition. In conclusion, administration of B. subtilis PB6 improved growth performance, enhanced intestinal barrier function, and mitigated intestinal inflammation/lesions, which might be due to its restoring effects on the ileal microbial composition in CP-challenged broilers.

Project description:Background:Clostridium perfringens is the main etiological agent of necrotic enteritis. Lactobacilli show beneficial effects on intestinal health in infectious disease, but the protective functions of lactobacilli in C. perfringens-infected chickens are scarcely described. This study examined the effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus) on the growth performance and intestinal health of broiler chickens challenged with Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens) over a 28-day period. Using a 2?×?2 factorial arrangement of treatments, a total of 308 1-day-old male Arbor Acres broiler chicks were included to investigate the effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus) on the growth performance and intestinal health of broiler chickens challenged with Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens) during a 28-day trial. Results:During infection (d 14-21), C. perfringens challenge decreased the average daily gain (P?<? 0.05), and increased feed conversion ratio and the mortality rate (P?<? 0.05). However, dietary supplementation with L. acidophilus increased the body weight of C. perfringens-infected broilers on d 21 (P?<? 0.05), and tended to decrease the mortality (P?=?0.061). C. perfringens challenge decreased the villus height (P?<? 0.05), the ratio of villus height to crypt depth (P?<? 0.05) and OCLN (occludin) mRNA expression (P?<? 0.05), and increased the pro-inflammatory cytokine expression in the spleen and jejunum, the intestinal populations of C. perfringens and Escherichia (P?<?0.05), and the serum content of endotoxin (P?<?0.05), regardless of L. acidophilus supplementation. In contrast, dietary L. acidophilus reducedthe intestinal lesion score of challenged broilers (P?<?0.05), the mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, ileal populations of Escherichia and serum endotoxin content (P?<?0.05), but increased the intestinal Lactobacillus populations (P?<?0.05), irrespective of C. perfringens challenge. Conclusion:Dietary addition of L. acidophilus could improve the intestinal health and reduce the mortality of broilers suffering from necrotic enteritis.

Project description:The aim of this study was to investigate the effect on growth performance and nutrient utilisation when supplementing diets deficient in energy and protein with carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide in broilers challenged with coccidia. 960 Ross 308 broilers were used in this 21-day study. The treatments were arranged into a 2×4 factorial with 2 challenge states (challenged and non-challenged) and 4 different additive types (control, xylanase alone, xylanase and β-glucanase mixture and xylo-oligosaccharide). On day 14, the challenged group received 12× the recommended dose of coccidiosis vaccine while the non-challenged group received a sham treatment of water only. The birds and feed were weighed on days 0, 14 and 21. On day 21, two birds per pen were euthanized, the caeca were removed and the contents collected for short chain fatty acid analysis. Six more birds per pen were euthanized and ileal digesta were collected and pooled per pen for nutrient digestibility analysis. Feed intake was greater (P < 0.05) on days 14 and 21 when xylo-oligosaccharide was included in the diet compared to the xylanase and β-glucanase mixture in birds challenged with coccidiosis. Including xylo-oligosaccharide in the diet improved (P < 0.05) the digestibility of nitrogen and supplementing diets with the xylanase and β-glucanase mixture improved (P < 0.05) the digestibility of several amino acids. The concentration of arabinose and xylose was (P < 0.001) greater when broiler diets were supplemented with carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide compared to the control. Although there was an increase in short chain fatty acid production due to the addition of carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide, there was no additive effect on the %G+C profile of caecal bacteria however there was a negative effect of coccidiosis. In conclusion, the similarity in the response to carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide supplementation illustrates that the hydrolysis products from carbohydrase activity may have prebiotic like effects.

Project description:Necrotic enteritis is a disease caused by Clostridium perfringens, which threatens poultry production in the absence of dietary antibiotics. A total number of 144 Ross broilers were reared in 12 pens with each hosting 12 birds. Each 6 pens of birds were fed medicated (bacitracin at 55 ppm) or non-medicated starter diets (Nutreco Canada Agresearch) immediately after the chicks were placed. At day 18, birds were challenged with C. perfringens (107 cfu per ml mixed with feed). Spleens were collected from 12 birds of each group at day 18 (before infection), 19, 20, and 22. A low-density chicken immune microarray was used to study gene expression profiling of host response to C. perfringens infection. Six biological replicates (2 birds per biological replicate) for each treatment group were labeled with either Cy5 or Cy3 with dye swap. A total of 24 arrays were used for this study. Gene signal intensity was globally normalized by LOWESS and expressed as log2 ratios. A mixed model including treatment, time, array, subgrid (random effect), dye, and all interactions among treatment and time was used to identify differentially expressed genes between post-infection vs. pre-infection, among post-infections, and between medication treatments, at the 5% significance level. The results indicated subtle medication effects on gene expression of these immune-related genes compared to bacterial infection effect. Our findings strongly suggest that both cell-mediated and antibody-mediated immune responses via MHC class I and II systems were actively involved in the host defense against C. perfringens infection in broilers. The unique cytokine signaling pathway and apoptosis cascade found in the study provide a new insight of molecular regulation of host immune response. Collectively, the findings of the present study will shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying C. perfringens infection in broilers. There were two groups: medicated and non-medicated. Spleen were collected to isolate total RNA for gene expression profiling.For the microarray study, two birds from each pen were pooled within each group. To account for any bias inherent to the fluorescent dyes, three of the six medicated replicates were labeled with Cy3 and the other three were labeled with Cy5 at each time point. The same design was applied for the non-medicated group. There were six hybridizations between medicated and non-medicated replicates at each time point. Twenty-three out of 24 arrays were used (data from one array were discarded due to poor quality).

Dataset Information

Gene expression profiling within the spleen of Clostridium perfringens-challenged broilers fed antibiotic-medicated and non-medicated diets.

Publications

Gene expression profiling within the spleen of Clostridium perfringens-challenged broilers fed antibiotic-medicated and non-medicated diets.

Similar Datasets

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