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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #351446
Research Project: Non-antibiotic Strategies to Control Enteric Diseases of Poultry

Location: Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory

Title: Characterization of clostridium perfringens netB+tpel+ type A atrains isolated from necrotic enteritis-afflicted broiler chickens

Author
item Li, Charles
item Lillehoj, Hyun
item Yan, Xianghe
item GU, CHANGQIN - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item SUN, ZHIFENG - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item LEE, YOUNGSUB - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item ZHAO, HONGYAN - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item XIANYU, ZHEZI - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item Siragusa, Gregory
item GRANT, ARQUETTE - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2018
Publication Date: 7/10/2018
Citation: Li, C.Z., Lillehoj, H.S., Yan, X., Gu, C., Sun, Z., Lee, Y., Zhao, H., Xianyu, Z., Siragusa, G.R., Grant, A. 2018. Characterization of clostridium perfringens netB+tpel+ type A atrains isolated from necrotic enteritis-afflicted broiler chickens. Meeting Abstract. P52.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Clostridium perfringens (CP) Type A strains are the key etiological factor in induction of necrotic enteritis (NE), one of the important enteric diseases in poultry, responsible for the annual loss of $ 6 billions to worldwide poultry industry. Several CP toxin genes were found to be critical in the NE pathogenesis, but less information is available on CP lethal toxin tpel gene in chickens. In this report, 20 CP strains isolated from NE-afflicted birds were characterized microbiologically, molecularly, and 6 strains were tested for their virulence in chickens experimentally. Toxinotyping by PCR revealed that all the strains tested were alpha toxin-positive, but only five strains were netB+tpel+ (Tpel 13, Tpel 15, Tpel 17, Tpel 18, Tpel 19). The results from in vivo animal study by repeated CP infections with CP strains indicated that Tpel 17 was the most virulent inducing NE lesions in broiler chickens with least relative body weight gain. Quantitative PCR showed that 4 of CP tpel+ Strains contained the similar copy numbers of tpel genes among the bacteria strains normalized by copies of 16S rRNA house-keeping gene marker. Availability of these virulent netB+tpel+ CP strains would greatly benefit the studies in CP pathogenesis and vaccine development as an inducible NE model. Key words: Clostridium perfringens, necrotic enteritis, netB, tpel, virulence