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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 #380222
Research Project: Non-antibiotic Strategies to Control Enteric Diseases of Poultry

Location: Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory

Title: Effect of dietary maltol as postbiotics on innate immunity, gut health and growth performance of broiler chickens infected with Eimeria maxima

Author
item PARK, INKYUNG - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item GOO, DOOYUN - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item NAM, HYOYOUN - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item WICKRAMASURIYA, SAMIRU - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item LI, KICHOON - The Ohio State University
item ZIMMERMAN, NOAH - Arm & Hammer Animal And Food Production
item SMITH, ALEXANDRA - Arm & Hammer Animal And Food Production
item REHBERGER, THOMAS - Arm & Hammer Animal And Food Production
item Lillehoj, Hyun

Submitted to: American Association of Avian Pathologists
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/8/2021
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Maltol is a gut metabolite which is highly upregulated when chickens are given a growth promoting direct-fed microbials, Bacillus subtilis 1781/747 (Park, I., et al., 2020. Front. Vet Sci. 2020 7:123.). To better understand the role of dietary maltol in mediating beneficial effects on host immunity, gut health and growth promotion in chickens, in vitro and in vivo studies were conducted using 4 different host cell types. We developed in vitro culture system to evaluate the effect of maltol on innate immune response using chicken macrophage cells (HD11), gut integrity on chicken intestinal epithelial cells (IEC), and differentiation effect on muscle cells using quail muscle cell line (QMC) and primary chicken embryonic muscle cells (PMC). In in vivo trials, dietary effects of maltol was tested as postbiotics by feeding high and low doses of maltol to newly hatched commercial broiler chickens and measured disease parameters including gut lesion scores, fecal oocyst shedding, growth performance, gut integrity and host immune response after infecting chickens orally with Eimeria maxima. In vitro, maltol increased the gene expression of (P < 0.001) occludin, ZO1 on IEC, and MUC2 levels in IEC compared to control group regardless of doses used, and also IL1ß and IL8 levels in HD11 compared to control group. In vivo, high and low doses of maltol increased (P < 0.001) body weight during entire infection period compared to negative control group. Additionally, high dose of maltol decreased lesion score (P = 0.024), TNFSF15 (P = 0.048), and IL1ß (P = 0.032) of jejunum and fecal oocyst shedding (P < 0.001) in chickens infected with E. maxima. In conclusion, maltol improved immune responses in IEC and HD11 in vitro and improved the growth performance, intestinal immune response, and barrier integrity of young broiler chicken infected with E. maxima in vivo. These results support beneficial effects of dietary maltol to enhance growth performance, gut health, and disease resistance in coccidiosis and indicate maltol as a potential postbiotics to replace the use of AGP in the commercial poultry production.