A Poultry Subclinical Necrotic Enteritis Disease Model Based on Natural Clostridium perfringens Uptake

Abstract

Necrotic enteritis (NE) in poultry is an opportunistic infection caused by Clostridium perfringens. Well-known as a multifactorial disease, NE development is under the influence of a wide range of environmental risk factors that promote the proliferation of pathogenic C. perfringens at the expense of nonpathogenic strains. Current in vivo NE challenge models typically incorporate pre-exposure to disease risk factors, in combination with exogenous C. perfringens inoculation. Our goal was to enhance current models using a natural uptake of C. perfringens from the barn environment to produce a subclinical infection. We incorporated access to litter, coccidial exposure (either 10× or 15× of the manufacturer-recommended Coccivac B52 Eimeria vaccine challenge; provided unspecified doses of E. acervulina, E. mivati, E. tenella, and two strains of E. maxima), feed composition, and feed withdrawal stress, and achieved the commonly observed NE infection peak at 3 weeks post-hatch. NE severity was evaluated based on gut lesion pathology, clinical signs, and mortality rate. Under cage-reared conditions, 15× coccidial vaccine-challenged birds showed overall NE lesion prevalence that was 8-fold higher than 10× coccidial vaccine-challenged birds. NE-associated mortality was observed only in a floor-reared flock after a 15× coccidial vaccine challenge.

Microencapsulated Sodium Butyrate Alleviates Immune Injury and Intestinal Problems Caused by Clostridium Perfringens through Gut Microbiota

“…In healthy animals, bacteria and health stand at either end of a pair of scales; once this balance is broken, harmful bacteria in the environment and body can cause damage to animal health, including intestinal inflammation, immune stress, and so on [19]. C. perfringens is consumed by chickens from environmental sources during rearing, including contaminated feed, water, and the farm environment [20]. As previously reported, the immune organ changes in response to infection with C. perfringens, shown in terms of the morphology and weight of the bursa of Fabricius, spleen, and thymus [21].…”

Elucidating the Varying Impact of Necrotic Enteritis Using Performance and Health Indicators in Broiler Infection Models

“…The complex etiology of NE also makes it difficult to develop accurate, fully representative, research models. Nevertheless, a number have been developed, varying from models of subclinical NE (13, 14) to acute clinical NE (15). The available infection models have been individually assessed, compared, and reviewed (16–20).…”

Evaluation of the efficacy of combination of glutaraldehyde and quaternary ammonium compound disinfectant against different isolated C. perfringens strains recovered from broilers

“…It causes foodborne infections in humans that are usually linked to the ingestion of contaminated chicken meat, it produces clinical or subclinical necrotic enteritis in broilers (Mora et al, 2020). Necrotic enteritis is an opportunistic infection caused by Gram-positive, anaerobic spore-forming C. perfringens bacterium in chickens resulting in severe economic losses to the global poultry industry (He et al 2022).…”