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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Egg and Poultry Production Safety Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #308225
Title: Recovery of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis from hens initially infected with serovar Kentucky

Author
item Guard, Jean
item SANCHEZ-INGUNZA, ROXANA - Former ARS Employee
item SHAH, DEVENDRA - Washington State University
item Rothrock, Michael
item Gast, Richard
item Jones, Deana

Submitted to: Journal of Food Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/4/2015
Publication Date: 2/18/2015
Citation: Guard, J.Y., Sanchez-Ingunza, R., Shah, D.H., Rothrock Jr, M.J., Gast, R.K., Jones, D.R. 2015. Recovery of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis from hens initially infected with serovar Kentucky. Journal of Food Chemistry, 189:86-92. 2015.

Interpretive Summary: Only about a dozen of 2500 serotypes of Salmonella cause disease associated with consumption of contaminated food, thus most do not cause problems. There is very little knowledge about how the presence of one serotype of Salmonella impacts the presence of others. We gave chickens a serotype of Salmonella that is not associated with human disease and then followed the initial infection by giving a more harmful serotype. Results suggest that exposure to the less harmful serotype decreased recovery of the harmful type. This information may help vaccine companies select combinations of serotypes to improve the performance of vaccines intended to reduce the presence of harmful serotypes of Salmonella in chickens that are used for food.

Technical Abstract: Salmonella enterica serovars Enteritidis and Kentucky differ greatly in epidemiology. We wanted to know if the non-pathogenic serotype Kentucky impacted the recovery of the pathogen Enteritidis from chickens. To explore this issue, 4 groups of hens were treated as follows: i) hens were inoculated orally with Kentucky and then injected intramuscularly 2 weeks later with Enteritidis, ii) hens were contact infected with Kentucky and then with Enteritidis, iii) hens were injected with Enteritidis, and iv) hens were contact infected with Enteritidis. Hens exposed orally received 10 exp9 CFU, and injected hens received 10 exp7 CFU. Droppings, cecal tonsils and 5 internal organs were sampled and cultured at 6, 13 and 20 days post-infection. Egg production was monitored. Results suggest that non-pathogenic serotypes of Salmonella may mitigate recovery of Enteritidis from chickens. In summary, we show results from an initial experiment intended to investigate if multiple serotypes impact the ecology of pathogenic Salmonella enterica on-farm.