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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #135106
Title: A NOVEL STRATEGY TO REDUCE ENTEROPATHOGEN COLONIZATION OF FOOD ANIMALS

Author
item Anderson, Robin
item Callaway, Todd
item Edrington, Thomas
item Genovese, Kenneth - Ken
item Jung, Yong Soo
item Elder, Robert
item Byrd Ii, James - Allen
item Moore, Randle
item Harvey, Roger
item Nisbet, David

Submitted to: International Avian Symposium
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/13/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Many strains of Escherichia coli and Salmonella are important pathogens affecting food producing animals. As members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, these bacteria possess respiratory nitrate reductase activity. Since most strict anaerobic bacteria inhabiting the gut of animals lack respiratory nitrate reductase, and since most known respiratory nitrate reductases also reduce chlorate intracellularly to cytotoxic chlorite, we hypothesized that a stabilized preparation containing chlorate may selectively kill E. coli and Salmonella yet remain relatively innocuous to beneficial gut bacteria. In support of this hypothesis, we found that E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 were reduced in a dose dependent manner during in vitro incubation of buffered ruminal fluid supplemented with 1.25 and 5 mM sodium chlorate. We observed a beneficial effect of intraruminal addition of an experimental chlorate product on fecal E. coli concentration. This latter observation indicates that effective quantities of the active ion passed through the rumen to the lower gut. Results from other in vivo experiments revealed a beneficial effect of an experimental chlorate preparation on reducing both the incidences and concentrations of Salmonella colonization in crops and ceca of market age broilers as well as reducing gut concentrations of Salmonella and E. coli in weaned pigs. None of the animals exhibited symptoms of chlorate toxicity with these experimental treatments. The results presented above suggest that a novel experimental preparation containing chlorate may be useful in the preharvest control of enteric pathogens.