Australia - Student Eliminates Prime Suspect Chicken Gut Disease
Published: May 18, 2007
Source : Australian Food News
An Australian PhD student has overturned 30 years of scientific dogma by eliminating the prime suspect believed to cause a common gut disease in chickens that costs the global poultry industries an estimated US$2 billion a year.
Working on a research project funded by the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre (Poultry CRC), Monash University PhD student, Anthony Keyburn, has now opened the way for more research to identify the real culprit behind necrotic enteritis, the most common and financially devastating bacterial disease in modern broiler (meat chicken) flocks.
His research will be featured at the 2007 Cooperative Research Centres Association Conference's Early Career Scientists Presentations in Perth on Thursday, 17 May.
Necrotic enteritis, or NE, is caused by Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens), a bacterium found at low levels in the intestine of healthy birds. The bacterium only causes the disease when it transforms from a non-toxin producing type to a toxin producing type. Five types of C. perfringens produce toxins, including alpha-toxin, which was believed to be a key to the occurrence of NE following research done in the 1970s. Little work had been done since then to validate this widely-held belief.
"My study has provided the first definitive evidence that alpha-toxin is not an essential virulence factor in the pathogenesis of NE in chickens," Anthony said.
"For the last thirty years, alpha-toxin has been implicated as the major virulence factor in causing NE, although definitive proof had never been reported."
To investigate alpha-toxin's influence on the disease, Anthony and other members of the project team constructed a bacterial strain that doesn't have this toxin and found that it was still able to cause disease in chickens, overturning decades of dogma and blowing the search for the real perpetrator wide open.
"This is a major scientific breakthrough," said Professor Mingan Choct, CEO of the Armidale-based Poultry CRC.
"It forces scientists around the world to go back to the drawing board, so far as the mechanisms whereby the bacterium causes the disease are concerned.
"The Poultry CRC is funding a follow-up project to open the way for the development of vaccines to combat what is an extremely important disease for the poultry industry around the world."
Anthony will speak to hundreds of delegates about his breakthrough at the Cooperative Research Centres Association's (CRCA) Annual Conference in Perth on 17 May in a session that showcases the achievements of Australia's outstanding early career research scientists and engineers.
1. McReynolds JL, Byrd JA, Anderson RC, Moore RW, Edrington TS, Genovese KJ, Poole TL, Kubena LF, and Nisbet DJ (2004) "Evaluation of immunosuppressants and dietary mechanisms in an experimental disease model for necrotic enteritis." Poultry Science, 83:1948-52.
2. Keyburn AL, Sheedy SA, Ford ME, Williamson MM, Awad MM, Rood JI, Moore RJ "Alpha-toxin of Clostridium perfringens is not an essential virulence factor in necrotic enteritis in chickens." Infection and Immunity, 2006 Nov;74(11):6496-500.
Working on a research project funded by the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre (Poultry CRC), Monash University PhD student, Anthony Keyburn, has now opened the way for more research to identify the real culprit behind necrotic enteritis, the most common and financially devastating bacterial disease in modern broiler (meat chicken) flocks.
His research will be featured at the 2007 Cooperative Research Centres Association Conference's Early Career Scientists Presentations in Perth on Thursday, 17 May.
Necrotic enteritis, or NE, is caused by Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens), a bacterium found at low levels in the intestine of healthy birds. The bacterium only causes the disease when it transforms from a non-toxin producing type to a toxin producing type. Five types of C. perfringens produce toxins, including alpha-toxin, which was believed to be a key to the occurrence of NE following research done in the 1970s. Little work had been done since then to validate this widely-held belief.
"My study has provided the first definitive evidence that alpha-toxin is not an essential virulence factor in the pathogenesis of NE in chickens," Anthony said.
"For the last thirty years, alpha-toxin has been implicated as the major virulence factor in causing NE, although definitive proof had never been reported."
To investigate alpha-toxin's influence on the disease, Anthony and other members of the project team constructed a bacterial strain that doesn't have this toxin and found that it was still able to cause disease in chickens, overturning decades of dogma and blowing the search for the real perpetrator wide open.
"This is a major scientific breakthrough," said Professor Mingan Choct, CEO of the Armidale-based Poultry CRC.
"It forces scientists around the world to go back to the drawing board, so far as the mechanisms whereby the bacterium causes the disease are concerned.
"The Poultry CRC is funding a follow-up project to open the way for the development of vaccines to combat what is an extremely important disease for the poultry industry around the world."
Anthony will speak to hundreds of delegates about his breakthrough at the Cooperative Research Centres Association's (CRCA) Annual Conference in Perth on 17 May in a session that showcases the achievements of Australia's outstanding early career research scientists and engineers.
1. McReynolds JL, Byrd JA, Anderson RC, Moore RW, Edrington TS, Genovese KJ, Poole TL, Kubena LF, and Nisbet DJ (2004) "Evaluation of immunosuppressants and dietary mechanisms in an experimental disease model for necrotic enteritis." Poultry Science, 83:1948-52.
2. Keyburn AL, Sheedy SA, Ford ME, Williamson MM, Awad MM, Rood JI, Moore RJ "Alpha-toxin of Clostridium perfringens is not an essential virulence factor in necrotic enteritis in chickens." Infection and Immunity, 2006 Nov;74(11):6496-500.
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