Hops Extract May Reduce Clostridium in Chickens
Published: October 29, 2008
Source : USDA Agricultural Research Service
Certain bacteria in the intestines of chickens not only can cause contamination of meat during processing, but also may pose major production losses by causing disease in the broiler chicken.
Currently, poultry producers use sub-therapeutic amounts of antibiotics in poultry feed as growth promoters and to control bacterial pathogens or parasites. However, bacteria can become resistant to the antibiotics, so ARS scientists are looking for alternatives.
The hop plant (Humulus lupulus) contains bitter acids known to be potent antimicrobials. One of these compounds, lupulone, was thought to control levels of the disease-causing agent Clostridium perfringens in chickens.
ARS scientists, working under a cooperative research agreement with hops producer Hopsteiner in Yakima, Wash., examined the effect of feeding different concentrations of lupulone to broiler chickens to determine the compound's impact on Clostridium populations in the intestinal tracts of birds inoculated with C. perfringens.
A research team led by microbiologist Gregory Siragusa, formerly of the ARS Poultry Microbiological Safety Research Unit in Athens, Ga., in collaboration with Gerhard Haas of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, delivered different concentrations of lupulone via water to chickens inoculated with C. perfringens. After 22 days—the timeframe associated with clostridial disease in broiler chickens—C. perfringens counts were significantly reduced in the lupulone-treated group compared to another group of chickens that did not receive the lupulone treatment. The reductions ranged from 30 to 50 percent.
According to the team, the potential for lupulone as an antibiotic alternative in poultry rearing is feasible based on these results.
This research was published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
ABSTRACT
Antimicrobial activity of lupulone against Clostridium perfringens in the chicken intestinal tract jejunum and caecum
Objectives: Owing to the spread of antibiotic resistance among human infectious agents, there is a need to research antibiotic alternatives for use in animal agricultural systems. Antibiotic-free broiler chicken production systems are known to suffer from frequent outbreaks of necrotic enteritis due in part to pathogenic type A Clostridium perfringens. Hop (Humulus lupulus) bitter acids are known to possess potent antimicrobial activity. Lupulone was evaluated for in vivo antimicrobial activity to inhibit C. perfringens in a chick gastrointestinal colonization model.
Methods: Using a week-2 per os inoculated C. perfringens chicken colonization model, C. perfringens counts in mid-intestinal and caecal contents were compared between chickens administered lupulone at 62.5, 125 and 250 ppm in drinking water versus 0 ppm control.
Results: At day 22, post-hatch intestinal C. perfringens counts of lupulone-treated chickens were significantly lower (P < 0.05) than water-treated control groups in both jejunal and caecal sampling sites across all lupulone dosages tested.
Conclusions: Lupulone administered through water inhibits gastrointestinal levels of inoculated pathogenic clostridia within the chicken gastrointestinal tract. Lupulone was effective within the chemically complex mixture of material within the gastrointestinal tract, thereby making this agent a target of further research as an antibiotic alternative for this and possibly other intestinal infections.
Authors: G. R. Siragusa1, G. J. Haas2, P. D. Matthews3, R. J. Smith3, R. J. Buhr1, N. M. Dale4 and M. G. Wise5
1 Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Poultry Microbiological Safety Research UnitRussell Research Center, Athens, GA, USA
2 School of Natural Sciences, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ, USA
3 S.S. Steiner, Inc., New York, NY, USA
4 Department of Poultry Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
5 bioMérieux, Bacterial Barcodes, Inc., Athens, GA, USA
Received 16 August 2007; returned 8 October 2007; revised 7 December 2007; accepted 7 January 2008
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