Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #370416
Research Project: Non-antibiotic Strategies to Control Enteric Diseases of Poultry

Location: Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory

Title: "Detection of necrotic enteritis (NE) B-like toxin in biological samples of NE-afflicted chickens by capture Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay"

Author
item LEE, KYUNG-WOO - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item KIM, WH - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item Li, Charles
item Lillehoj, Hyun

Submitted to: American Association of Avian Pathologists
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/30/2019
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Necrotic enteritis (NE) is a devastating enteric disease caused by Clostridium perfringens type A which impacts global poultry industry by compromising performance, health and welfare of the chickens. Major contributing factors to NE are well established with coccidiosis exposure being dominant one. As to the causative main toxin responsible for NE pathogenesis, the main virulent factor has been shifted from a-toxin, which is a phospholipase C, to NE B-like (netb) toxin, plasmid-encoded pore-forming heptameric protein, in NE development. Since then, occurrence or prevalence of netb positive C. perfringens strains in NE-afflicted poultry flocks has been reported globally. On the other hand, reports on the detection of netb protein per se in NE-afflicted chickens are lacking. In this study, we detected netb protein in biological samples of NE-afflicted chickens using netb-specific monoclonal antibody-based capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Gut digesta and fecal droppings which were collected at 0, 6, 24 , and 30 hours post C. perfringens infection from chickens that had been experimentally induced NE using coccidiosis/C. perfringens infection model were used in netb-specific ELISA. The results showed that netb toxin was not detected on digesta/fecal droppings which were collected at 0 and 6 hours, but netb toxin was detected in digesta/fecal droppings at 24 and 36 hours post NE induction. Here, we first report that native netb toxin can be detected from biological samples from NE-afflicted chickens using netb-specific monoclonal antibody-based capture ELISA.