Date of Graduation

5-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Cell & Molecular Biology (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Cell & Molecular Biology

Advisor/Mentor

Rhoads, Douglas D.

Committee Member

Ivey, D. Mack

Second Committee Member

McNabb, David S.

Third Committee Member

Thallapuranam, Suresh

Keywords

Animal welfare; Bacteria; Chicken; Immune response; Osteomyelitis; Pathogens; Poultry industry

Abstract

We developed High Resolution Melt Analysis (HERMA) as a rapid and reliable molecular diagnostic assay for the detection and identification of the main bacterial species recovered from the blood and lesions of bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO) from the lame broilers at the University of Arkansas poultry research farm. Also, the present study confirms that raising young birds on suspended wire flooring has been proved to successfully induce lameness attributable to BCO with birds being more susceptible to bacteraemia than those that were raised on litter flooring. The newly described pathogen, Staphylococcus agnetis, has been reported to be overrepresented in blood and BCO lesions from lame broilers. In this study, we tried to understand the role of macrophage killing in the virulence of this emerging pathogen as survival the killing mechanisms exerted by macrophage may be a critical component for bacterial systemic dissemination (bacteraemia). Our chicken isolate S. agnetis 908 were considered to be hyper virulent strain by resisting the killing strategies by chicken macrophage cells in tissue culture. Moreover, we assess the process of adding organic trace minerals (OTM) supplements to the pelleted feed to improve flock health and performance through enhancing the immune capacity of the broiler chicken

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