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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #72771
Title: LYMPHOKINE-AUGMENTED ACTIVATION OF AVIAN HETEROPHILS

Author
item Kogut, Michael - Mike
item LOWRY, VIRGINIA - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
item MOYES, RITA - 6202-30-10
item BOWDEN, LACY - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
item BOWDEN, R - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
item GENOVESE, KENNETH - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
item DELOACH, JOHN - 6202-30-10

Submitted to: Journal Of Poultry Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/2/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Poultry products have been shown to be contaminated with Salmonella resulting in a food safety concern to the industry. We have been conducting tests to understand how to improve the chicken#s immune response to salmonellae infections. We have found that treating baby chicks with a protein from immune system cells of other chickens that have had a Salmonella enteritidis infection will protect the new chickens from infection. The objective of this experiment was to determine what changes occur in the white blood cells of baby chicks given this protective protein. The results show that we can make the white blood cells dramatically more efficient in their ability to fight off an infection. These results are important to the poultry industry because we can now target a specific white blood cell for stimulation in order to reduce invasion of salmonellae from the intestine.

Technical Abstract: Chicks and turkey poults are highly susceptible to Salmonella infections during the first four days post-hatch due to the functional immaturity of both the innate and acquired immune systems. Heterophils are important mediators of innate resistance in poultry especially in young birds that have not yet developed an acquired immune response. We have previously shown that the administration of Salmonella enteritidis (SE)-immune lymphokines (ILK) into either 18-day-old developing embryos or day-of- hatch chicks and poults conferred increased resistance to SE organ invasion. The protection induced by ILK is mediated by vigorous recruitment and activation of heterophils. These activated heterophils migrate rapidly to the site of bacterial invasion where they phagocytize and kill the SE. In addition, during the activation process, membrane expression of adhesion molecules rapidly changes from L-selectins to beta- 2 integrins (CD11b/CD18) on the cells that become activated. These results further demonstrate the validity of preventive activation in poultry to induce the migration of large numbers of activated phagocytic cells to the site of infection by a pathogenic organism. Importantly, this immunopotentiation of the inflammatory response by ILK, as described here, induces the functional maturation of heterophils during the first 4 days of life.