Supplemental Bacillus subtilis PB6 Improves Growth Performance and Gut Health in Broilers Challenged with Clostridium perfringens

作者：Yan Liu, Song Zhang, Zheng Luo, Dan Liu · 发表于：Journal of Immunology Research · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1155/2021/2549541 · 被引用次数：31 · 研究领域：Animal Nutrition and Physiology、Probiotics and Fermented Foods、Gut microbiota and health

Clostridium perfringens (CP) is the principal pathogenic bacterium of chicken necrotic enteritis (NE), which causes substantial economic losses in poultry worldwide. Although probiotics are known to provide multiple benefits, little is known about the potential effects of Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) application in preventing CP-induced necrotic enteritis. In this study, 450 male Arbor Acres broilers were divided into 5 experimental treatments: A: basal diet (control group); B: basal diet and CP challenge (model group); C: CP challenge+10 mg/kg enramycin (positive control group); D: CP challenge+ 4 × 10 7 CFU / kg of feed B. subtilis PB6 (PB6 low-dosage group); and E: CP challenge+ 6 × 10 7 CFU / kg of feed B. subtilis PB6 (PB6 high-dosage group). There were 6 replicate pens per treatment with 15 broilers per pen. The present research examined the effect of Bacillus subtilis PB6 (B. subtilis PB6) on growth performance, mRNA expression of intestinal cytokines and tight junctions, and gut flora composition in broilers challenged with CP. The entire experiment was divided into two phases: the non-CP challenge phase (d0–18) and the CP challenge phase (d18–26). PB6 did not increase the growth performance during the first stage, but the PB6 high-dosage group was found to have larger body weight gain and ADFI during the CP challenge stage. Feed supplementation with PB6 reduced the lesion score of challenged chick...