Chitosan Supplementation Reduces Enteric Colonization of Campylobacter jejuni in Broiler Chickens and Down-Regulates Expression of Colonization Genes
Journal Title: Advances in Food Technology and Nutritional Sciences - Open Journal - Year 2015, Vol 1, Issue 5
Abstract
Campylobacter is one of the leading causes of foodborne bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide, and poultry is considered as the most common source of human infections. Campylobacter is prevalent in most poultry flocks and a reduction of Campylobacter in poultry would greatly reduce the risk of campylobacteriosis in humans. Unfortunately, efforts to reduce Campylobacter in pre-harvest poultry have been met with limited success. Preliminary studies with the natural compound, chitosan, demonstrate its ability to kill Campylobacter, in vitro. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of feed supplemented chitosan to reduce enteric Campylobacter colonization in broiler chickens. Additionally, the effect of chitosan on expression of Campylobacter’s chicken colonization genes was investigated using real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Because chitosan’s antimicrobial properties may vary depending upon its molecular weight, selected doses of three molecular weight chitosans were supplemented in the feed and evaluated for efficacy to reduce Campylobacter in chickens. Three replicate trials were conducted, and in each trial, birds were divided into 10 treatments (n=10 birds/treatment) and were fed 0% (controls), 0.25%, 0.5% or 1% (wt./wt.) of a low, medium or high molecular weight chitosan. Birds were fed treated feed for the duration of the study and orally challenged with a four-strain mixture of wild type C. jejuni on day 6. On day 15, the ceca samples were collected for enumeration of Campylobacter. In all three trials, the 0.5% dose of the medium molecular weight chitosan reduced cecal Campylobacter counts (P<0.05). RTqPCR analysis revealed that chitosan down-regulated the expression of chicken colonization genes as compared to control (P<0.05). These results suggest that supplementation of chitosan in feed is a potential strategy to reduce the enteric colonization of Campylobacter in pre-harvest chickens.
Authors and Affiliations
Dan J. Donoghue
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP543656
- DOI 10.17140/AFTNSOJ-1-119
- Views 160
- Downloads 0
Food Product Innovation and Food Safety: Two Vital Elements of the Global Food Security
Food security is one of the universally accepted and discussed current global issues of the world. Its definition informs how diverse and complicated it can be to solve this problem. It refers physical, social and econom...
A Quantitative Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Shiga Toxin 2a Requiring Only Commercially Available Reagents
Aim: This study develops a quantitative ELISA for measuring Shiga toxin 2 (Stx2) produced by Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), including foodborne pathogen E. coli O157:H7 by all commercially available...
An In Vitro Estimation of Glycemic Index of White Bread and Improvement of the Dietary Fiber
Consumers of products preferably demand minimally processed products that do not contain chemical preservatives and maintain health benefits. These encourage the use of dietary fiber (DF) to combat some metabolic disorde...
Conservation of Rice Genetic Resources for Food Security
In the Philippines, rice is a primary agricultural crop and major caloric food source of Filipinos. Rice is produced in all of this archipelagic country’s provinces, wherein total production (~18.4 million MT) is ranked...
New Strategies for Tracing Foodstuffs: Biological Barcodes Utilising PCR-DGGE
Traceability of foods is undertaken primarily at the administrative level, and the use of advanced analytical tools is rare. Nevertheless, the determination of geographical origin is a demand of the traceability system f...