Probiotics and prebiotics in poultry feeding: a strategy to reduce the transmission of C. jejuni along the food chain.

With the ban of dietary antimicrobial agents, the use of probiotics and prebiotics has attracted a great deal of attention in order to improve intestinal health and control food-borne pathogens, which is an important concern for the production of safe meat and meat products. Campylobacter has now emerged as a leading bacterial cause of food-borne gastroenteritis in humans around the world, and epidemiological evidence indicates poultry and poultry products as a significant source of human infection. In this work we evaluated the capability of probiotics and prebiotics to modulate the gut microbiota of broiler chickens to obtain a competitive reduction of C. jejuni colonization. PRO treatment: 2 probiotic strains (B. longum PCB 133 and L. plantarum PCS 20) were separately administered to 16 broiler chickens by oral gavage (107-108 cfu/day) for 15 days. PRE treatment: 2 prebiotic compounds (FOS and GOS) were separately administered to 14 broilers mixed with normal feed at a concentration respectively of 0.5% and 3%. The faecal samples were collected form 10 broilers Detection and quantification of the targeted bacterial groups (Bifidobacterium spp., Lactobacillus spp., Campylobacter spp., Bifidobacterium longum, Campylobacter jejuni) were performed by Real-Time PCR using SybrGreen chemistry. No adverse effects were observed in the animals receiving the probiotic or prebiotic supplement during the experiment. In the PRO treatment B. longum was recovered in the faeces of all animals (~ 4 log10 cfu/g of faeces). In addition, SYN treatment resulted in a significant (P ≤ 0.01) increase in Bifidobacterium spp. coupled with a significant decrease in C. jejuni population compared to the CON treatment after 15 day of supplementation. There were no significant differences regarding animal weight and feed intake between the treatments. The results obtained in this study indicate that this synbiotic formula has displayed interesting probiotic and prebiotic properties