There is growing pressure to find a way to eradicate or reduce the levels of foodborne pathogens such as
Campylobacter in broiler chickens, whilst limiting the use of antimicrobials. For
Campylobacter, there is currently no vaccine and on-farm biosecurity alone is insufficient
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There is growing pressure to find a way to eradicate or reduce the levels of foodborne pathogens such as
Campylobacter in broiler chickens, whilst limiting the use of antimicrobials. For
Campylobacter, there is currently no vaccine and on-farm biosecurity alone is insufficient to prevent colonization of broiler chicken flocks. Dipteran flies are proven carriers of
Campylobacter and their entry into broiler houses may contribute to its transmission to broiler chickens. As there is currently no experimental vector transmission model for
Campylobacter and chickens, we decided to examine experimentally whether
Galleria mellonella could be used as vector to transmit
Campylobacter to broiler chickens. More recently, the use of live insect feed has been proposed both for its nutritional qualities and improving bird welfare through the encouragement of natural foraging behaviours and it is unclear any risk this poses in terms of pathogen transmission. In this study, day-old chicks (
n = 29) were obtained from a commercial hatchery. At three weeks of age, birds were split into 4 This groups; Group 1 was infected via oral gavage with 10
6 cells of
C. jejuni-M1, Group 2 was fed
Galleria mellonella infected with 10
6 cells of C. jejuni-M1, Group 3 was fed uninfected
Galleria mellonella, whilst the remaining group was unchallenged. Cloacal swabs were taken at 2, 4, and 6 days post-infection (dpi) to follow transmission and at 8 dpi birds culled and
C. jejuni load quantified in the caeca and liver. At 8 dpi, all birds in both the
Campylobacter gavage group and those in the group fed the
Campylobacter infected
Galleria mellonella were Campylobacter positive, whereas those fed uninfected
Galleria mellonella and the control group were all Campylobacter negative. The mean caecal
Campylobacter load in the
Campylobacter gavage group was 1.7 × 10
10 per gram compared with 8.6 × 10
9 in the group fed the
Campylobacter-infected
Galleria mellonella. No liver positives were found in any of the groups. Our findings indicate that feeding broiler chickens with the vector
Galleria mellonella infected with
C. jejuni-M1 is sufficient to establish colonisation with
C. jejuni. We propose that
Galleria can be used as an easy and flexible model for vector transmission of foodborne pathogens in chicken.
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