Research

Research on necrotic enteritis

Clostridium perfringens causes the important disease of necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens (1-2).

   

The disease is associated with necrosis of intestinal villi.



Surprisingly little is known about immunity to infection. We have found that some strains are virulent for chickens and some are not, and that repeated subculture in the laboratory can turn virulent isolates into non-virulent, in not all cases being associated with genomic rearrangements.



Chickens infected with virulent bacteria become immune to subsequent challenge, whereas chickens infected with non-virulent bacteria remain suscpetible.
Although some people think that the alpha-toxin, a prominent phospholipase of C. perfringens, is important in immunity we are not convinced about this, since alpha toxin negative mutants can successfully immunize chickens against infection.

Our laboratory is working to characterize the basis of immunity of chickens to necrotic enteritis.