Author
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Augustine, Patricia |
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Submitted to: Journal Of Poultry Science
Publication Type: Research Notes Publication Acceptance Date: 6/5/1995 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Coccidiosis costs the poultry industry approximately $300 million annually in mortality and morbidity. These losses occur despite current control measures including the use of anticoccidial drugs. Efforts to develop alternative control measures depend in part on the availability of pure or enriched cultures of pathogenic coccidia. This note outlines an effective method for markedly enriching the numbers of individual species in a mixed culture of coccidia. The method takes advantage of the fact that the coccidia are separated spatially from each other shortly after they are inoculated into a foreign host, and will then reinvade their natural host and resume development. The method is rapid and yields a culture that contains at least 95% of the targeted species. These enriched cultures will enable investigators to determine the roles of each species in the overt response of the host bird. Technical Abstract: An effective method for the enrichment of 2 cecal species of the avian Eimeria in mixed cultures has been developed. The method involves the transfer of sporozoites of E. tenella and E. adenoeides from their specific site of invasion in a foreign host bird to the natural host, and markedly increases the numbers of the cecal species in relation to the "contaminating" species. Donor turkeys and chickens were inoculated with mixed cultures containing equal numbers of oocysts of the chicken coccidia, E. tenella + E. acervulina, or the turkey coccidia, E. adenoeides + E. meleagrimitis, respectively. After 8 to 24 hr, the cecal tissues of the donor birds were scraped into phosphate buffered saline and transferred, per os, to the natural host. On day 6 to 7 post-transfer, numerous oocysts of E. tenella and E. adenoeides were found in the recipient chickens and turkeys, respectively. In contrast, only occasional oocysts were found in a few birds in order areas of the intestine. |
