A scientific method called, enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR), has been used to fingerprint the kinetics of microbial community of fecal samples of ducklings orally infected with S. enteritidis, yieldeding valuable insights towards fully understanding the pathogenesis of S. enteritidis infection.

The study, performed by a team led by Professor Chen AC, is described in a research article to be in the February 21, 2008 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

ERIC-PCR bands of orally inoculated ducklings didn¡¯t show obvious change until 24 hours post inoculation (p.i.). The numbers of the ERIC-PCR bands gradually decreased from 24 h to 72 h p.i., and then, with the development of disease, the band numbers gradually increased to 6 d p.i. The prominent bacteria had changed because of S. enteritidis infection and the DNAstar of the staple of ERIC-PCR showed that aerobe and facultative aerobe (Escherichia coli, Shigella, Salmonella) had become the predominant bacilli in intestine of ducklings orally infected with S. enteritidis.

In the view of the authors, to date no clear explanation has existed to elucidate the effect of orally S. enteritidis infection on intestinal microbial community diversity, and no mechanism has been found to explain this action.

The study used an elegant design which included two groups of ducklings. Ducklings in group 1 were used to perform the experiment. Those in group 2 were used to observe clinical signs and mortality. This research was performed by researchers from the Avian Disease Research Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine of Sichuan Agricultural University.

Further research should explain the dynamic distribution regular pattern and the primary penetration sites of S. enteritidis.

Further Reading

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