Location: Poultry Research
Project Number: 6064-13000-014-014-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2024
End Date: Jul 31, 2029
Objective:
1. Apply in ovo-based vaccine delivery technologies for the delivery of live attentuated APEC vaccines. (Subobjective 2c)
2. Development of novel techniques/strategies to control bacterial pathogens associated with poultry incubation and hatching.
3. Evaluated of host microbiome response to APEC infection.
Approach:
1. Fertile eggs will be injected at 18 days with an APEC vaccine at multiple doses. Following hatch, hatchability will be assessed and chicks will be swabbed to determine differences in E. coli load. A subset of chicks will be raised to 3 weeks of age to determine the effect of vaccine on growth, E. coli load, and immune response.
2. Laboratory and bioinformatics based techniques will be used to determine the variation in antimicrobial sensitivity, virulence, and immunogenic potential. Results will be used in the development of novel methods to control APEC in poultry production.
3. DNA will be isolated from host tissues collected from birds infected with APEC with or without additional environmental stressors and/or interventions. Next generation sequencing and bioinformatic analysis will be used to determine the effect of infection models on host microbiome composition.
