Use of a Probiotic to Ameliorate the Growth Rate and the Inflammation of Broiler Chickens Caused by Eimeria tenella Infection

Abstract

A multistrain formula (MF) consisted of four selected lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains was evaluated for its function to ameliorate the growth rate and inflammation of broiler chickens caused by Eimeria tenella parasitizing. Thirty one day broiler chickens were divided into 3 groups with 10 chickens in 2 cages per group. These groups were control, infected and MF groups. In control group, chickens were fed with 0.2 ml PBS and not challenged with E. tenella. In MF group, chickens were gavage fed with 0.2 ml of MF (109 CFU/ml) from day 1 to day 23. On day 14, each chicken in both the infected and MF groups was challenged with 5,000 sporulated E. tenella oocysts. Seven days post infection, it was found that the average body weight gain (ABWG) for chickens in the infected and MF groups were 281.51 ± 61.00 and 295.52 ± 62.16 g per chicken, respectively. Chickens in each group were then sacrificed and their cecal tonsils collected. It was observed that feeding MF could reduce the cecal lesion scores (LS) of the Eimeria infected chickens significantly. In addition, for chickens in the MF group, the levels of cecal gene expression of proinflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and interferon (IFN)-γ, were found significantly lower, while anti-inflammation cytokine, ie, IL-10, was significantly higher than those of the chickens in the infected group. This study thus suggests that the MF, which previously has been shown to have antagonistic effect against Salmonella infection and the induced inflammation either in live or in heat killed form, may also be useful for the amelioration of the growth rate and the inflammation of broiler chickens caused by E. tenella infection.

Dissection of the cecal microbial community in chickens after Eimeria tenella infection

“…Lactobacillus-based probiotics have been demonstrated to exert anticoccidial properties on performance parameters such as body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, mortality, lesion score and oocysts output [50][51][52]. They were also shown to have a stimulating effect on the innate and adaptive immune system to stimulate intestinal intraepithelial lymphocyte subpopulations and cytokines including IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-1β and IL-6 [51][52][53]. To date, limited research has been conducted to study anticoccidial effects of Lactobacillus-based probiotics in vitro.…”

Probiyotiklerin Eimeria tenella İle Enfekte Broiler Piliçlerin Sağlık Durumu ve Verim Performansı Üzerine Etkileri

“…The researchers have summarized that probiotics modify receptors on enterocytes and this impairs or destroys sporozites and/or merozoites from pathogenity on enterocytes. Chen et al [38] have also demonstrated that probiotics have been effective on the growth rate and the inflammation of broiler chickens caused by E. tenella infection. Health promotion ( Table 2, Fig.…”

“…year of this new period many researches have conducted on the subject. Some plant based extracts, live beneficial microorganisms (probiotics) and vaccine applications have been recommended by researchers [2,37,38] .…”

“…AGPs are used as growth enhancers and health promoter of digestive system of meat chickens [8,38,39] . Probiotics also have been recommended as natural grow promoting agents in replacing with AGPs [37,40] .…”

“…Almost all the researchers have chosen about 7 th d after oocyst gavage in their hispathological studies. These researchers have occasionally chosen that day for scoring the gross lesions of intestines visually [38] . In this study, we chosen the day of histological examination day as the 28 th day of broiler life.…”