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B lymphocytes play a limited role in clearance of Campylobacter jejuni from the chicken intestinal tract

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posted on 2017-09-07, 15:49 authored by Lizeth Lacharme-Lora, Gemma Chaloner, Rachel Gilroy, Suzanne Humphrey, Kirsty Gibbs, Sue Jopson, Elli Wright, William Reid, Julian Ketley, Tom Humphrey, Nicola Williams, Steven Rushton, Paul Wigley
Campylobacter jejuni is the leading cause of foodborne bacterial gastroenteritis with contaminated poultry meat its main source. Control of C. jejuni is a priority for the poultry industry but no vaccines are available and their development hampered by poor understanding of the immunobiology of C. jejuni infection. Here we show the functional role of B lymphocytes in response to C. jejuni in the chicken through depletion of the B lymphocyte population (bursectomy) followed by challenge. B lymphocyte depletion has little effect on bacterial numbers in the ceca, the main site of colonisation, where C. jejuni persist to beyond commercial slaughter age, but reduces clearance from the small intestine. In longer-term experiments we show antibody leads to reduction in C. jeuni numbers in the ceca by nine weeks post infection. Whilst we did not examine any protective role to re-challenge, it illustrates the difficulty in producing a vaccine in a young, immunologically naïve host. We believe this is first study of functional immunity to C. jejuni in chicken and shows antibody is ineffective in clearing C. jejuni from the ceca within the production lifetime of chickens, although is involved in clearance from the small intestine and longer-term clearance from the ceca.

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Citation

Scientific Reports, 2017, 7:45090

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND PSYCHOLOGY/MBSP Non-Medical Departments/Department of Genetics

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  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Scientific Reports

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

eissn

2045-2322

Acceptance date

2017-02-16

Copyright date

2017

Available date

2017-09-07

Publisher version

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45090

Language

en

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