Temporal Effects of High Fishmeal Diet on Gut Microbiota and Immune Response in Clostridium perfringens-Challenged Chickens

Abstract

Necrotic enteritis (NE) caused by Clostridium perfringens is responsible for huge financial losses in the poultry industry annually. A diet highly supplemented with fishmeal is one factor predisposing chickens to the development of clinical NE. However, the effects of fishmeal-rich diets on the gut microbiota and immune response in chickens with C. perfringens challenge over the long-term are not well-understood. Here, a chicken NE model was established in which chickens were fed high fishmeal diet and subsequently infected with C. perfringens (FM/CP). Two control groups of chickens, one that was not infected and had a high fishmeal feeding (FM) and another group only infected with C. perfringens with basic diets (CP), were used as comparators. We analyzed the gut microbiota and immune response of the three groups at the age of 20, 24 [1 day post-infection (dpi)] and 30 days (7 dpi) using 16S rDNA sequencing and real-time PCR, respectively. We found that the composition of the gut microbiota had significant shifted in both the CP and FM/CP groups, although the CP group did not have intestinal lesions. The structure of the gut microbiota in C. perfringens-challenged chickens, independent of a high fishmeal diet, had the tendency to return to their non-infection state if the chickens no longer received C. perfringens challenge. Gut microbiota variation with time in challenged chickens with high fishmeal diet feeding was superimposed upon that of non-infected chickens with high fishmeal feeding. For the immune response, the relative expression of IL-8 in the ileum was significantly higher in infected chickens independent of high fishmeal feeding than in non-infected chickens. However, the expression of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) and serum amyloid A (SAA) genes in chicken liver were significantly increased in FM/CP compared to the other groups. In conclusion, high fishmeal feeding induced significant changes to the structure of chicken gut microbiota over time and such changes provided an opening for C. perfringens infection to progress to NE. The relative expression of AGP and SAA in liver tissue may be used as diagnostic biomarkers for poultry NE but such an indication requires further investigation.

The Effect of Clostridium butyricum on Gut Microbiota, Immune Response and Intestinal Barrier Function During the Development of Necrotic Enteritis in Chickens

“…C. perfringens can disrupt the balance of chicken intestinal bacteria. For example, we observed that C. perfringens challenge decreases the abundance of the beneficial bacterium Lactobacillus salivarius , and this finding is consistent with those of previous studies (Lin et al, 2017; Huang et al, 2018). The results of the PCoA and species composition show that there are no significant differences between the intestinal microbiota structures in the CB/CP and CP groups, indicating that the beneficial effect of C. butyricum is less than the harmful effect of C. perfringens on the structure of the intestinal flora.…”

“…The pathogenic C. perfringens cpnetBF carrying the netB gene was isolated from the intestines of broiler chickens with NE in Guangdong Province, China (Huang et al, 2018). The strain was stored at −80°C in fluid thioglycollate broth (FT, Beckson, Dickinson, and Company) supplemented with 30% glycerol.…”

16S rRNA gene sequencing reveals an altered composition of the gut microbiota in chickens infected with a nephropathogenic infectious bronchitis virus

“…Therefore, the optimal choice of the hypervariable region(s) and primer combination vary between various ecological communities. Previous research proved that the highest bacterial diversity and species richness in chicken gut microbiomes were obtained using the primer set corresponding to the V3-V4 region 34,35 . Based on these investigations, in our study, we selected primers targeting the V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene.…”

Synergistic Effects of Probiotics and Phytobiotics on the Intestinal Microbiota in Young Broiler Chicken

“…For instance, the Clostridium sensu stricto 1 genus exhibited the highest abundance apart from the lactobacilli. This Clostridium genus has been shown to be associated with necrotic enteritis and Clostridium perfringens infection models [66,67]. However, the Clostridium sensu stricto 1 cluster also contains species such as C. butyricum, which has also been used as a probiotic in poultry [68].…”