Abstract
Campylobacter jejuni is the main cause of bacterial food-borne diseases in developed countries. Chickens are the most important source of human infection. Vaccination of poultry is an attractive strategy to reduce the number of C. jejuni in the intestinal tract of chickens. We investigated the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of a recombinant C. jejuni flagellin-based subunit vaccine with intrinsic adjuvant activity. Toll-like receptor activation assays demonstrated the purity and TLR5 stimulating (adjuvant) activity of the vaccine. The antigen (20–40 μg) was administered in ovo to 18 day-old chicken embryos. Serum samples and intestinal content were assessed for antigen-specific systemic and mucosal humoral immune responses. In ovo vaccination resulted in the successful generation of IgY and IgM serum antibodies against the flagellin-based subunit vaccine as determined by ELISA and Western blotting. Vaccination did not induce significant amounts of flagellin-specific secretory IgA in the chicken intestine. Challenge of chickens with C. jejuni yielded similar intestinal colonization levels for vaccinated and control animals. Our results indicate that in ovo delivery of recombinant C. jejuni flagellin subunit vaccine is a feasible approach to yield a systemic humoral immune response in chickens but that a mucosal immune response may be needed to reduce C. jejuni colonization.
Highlights
Campylobacteriosis is the most frequent bacterial zoonosis with estimated 9 million human cases and an economic burden of around 2.4 billion EUR each year in the European Union alone [1,2,3]
Analysis of purity and immunostimulatory properties of the vaccine antigen In order to investigate whether chimeric NHC flagellin can be employed as a vaccine to reduce the C. jejuni load in chickens, the corresponding gene was expressed in E. coli and the Histagged protein isolated by nickel-affinity chromatography
Our study demonstrates that in ovo immunization of embryonated chicken eggs with a chimeric C. jejuni flagellin-based subunit vaccine elicits antigen-specific IgY and IgM antibodies
Summary
Campylobacteriosis is the most frequent bacterial zoonosis with estimated 9 million human cases and an economic burden of around 2.4 billion EUR each year in the European Union alone [1,2,3]. The main etiologic agent of human campylobacteriosis is Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni). Symptomatic C. jejuni infection usually manifests as an enterocolitis with a watery or bloody diarrhea, mostly accompanied with fever and abdominal pain. Infection may be followed by serious sequelae like reactive arthritis and Guillain-Barré syndrome [4,5,6,7]. The majority of human infections can be attributed to the consumption of C. jejuni-contaminated poultry meat products [8]. Reduction of Campylobacter in the chicken reservoir is
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