Chicken gut bacteria play an important role in poultry nutrition with regards to gut health and overall performance of poultry birds. Gut health has currently become an issue of key concern in the poultry industry with the ban on the use of antibiotic growth promoters. The limitation of basic culturing and biochemical techniques may impact on better understanding the response of chicken gut bacteria to feed additives. Although several suitable alternatives to AGPs are available; the knowledge of gut bacteria response to them should be ascertained or studied if not in the light of resistant bacteria strain entering the human food chain. This brings to the fore the fact that such studies will require the combined knowledge of immunology, molecular biology, poultry nutrition and digestive physiology. The most listed response is usually based on competitive exclusion of pathogenic bacteria by beneficial bacteria. The question of how the bacteria cells develop resistance in response to AGP use and what message their DNA is carrying as at when they enter the human food chain needs to be answered. May be the bacteria have silent messengers which tell them when to metamorphose into adaptable strain when the odds are against them. Or are answers in the “details” of how they physiologically respond to other feed additives in the absence of AGP.
Keywords: antibiotic growth promoters, feed additives, gut bacteria, molecular techniques, poultry nutrition.
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Excellent discussion. I just wanted to mention that today there are massive sequencing technologies to study the entire intestinal flora at a certain time and without the need for cultures. This will allow us to understand the microbiological responses to the action of food and additives.