Infection of newly hatched chicks with Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis) results in an inflammatory response in the intestinal tract which may influence the composition of gut microbiota.

In BMC Veterinary Research, Ivan Rychlik and colleagues at the Veterinary Research Institute in Brno, Czech Republic, report their study into whether S. Enteritidis induced inflammation results in changes in the caecal microbiota.

To achieve this aim, they compared the caecal microbiota of non-infected chickens and those infected by S. Enteritidis by pyrosequencing the V3/V4 variable regions of genes coding for 16S rRNA.

Caecal microbiota of chickens up to 19 days of life was dominated by representatives of Enterobacteriaceae, Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae, followed by Lactobacillaceae.

The presence of Lachnospiraceae did not change after S. Enteritidis infection. Enterobacteriaceae increased and Ruminococcaceae decreased after S. Enteritidis infection in two independent experiments although these results were not significant.

A significant increase in both experiments was observed only for the representatives of Lactobacillaceae, which may correlate with their microaerophilic growth characteristic compared to the obligate anaerobes from the families Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae.

The Brno scientists concluded that S. Enteritidis infection influences the composition of the caecal microbiota in chickens but these changes are minor in nature and should be understood more as an indirect consequence of infection and inflammation rather than a positively selected evolutionary trait.

Reference

^{Videnska P., F. Sisak, H. Havlickova, M. Faldynova and I. Rychlik. 2013. Influence of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis infection on the composition of chicken cecal microbiota BMC Veterinary Research, 9:140. doi:10.1186/1746-6148-9-140}

July 2013