The effect of ovalbumin and mannose-conjugated ovalbumin on the prevention of Salmonella adherence to the intestinal epithelium of chickens

This investigation was designed to determine the effect of intact ovalbumin and mannose-conjugatedovalbumin on the prevention of Salmonella typhimurium adherence to the epithelium of small intestine ofchickens. Mannose-conjugated ovalbumin was produced by Maillard-type reaction between chickenovalbumin and D-mannose at 60°C. The results revealed that incubation up to 96 hrs caused the highestamount of covalent attachment of mannose to the ovalbumin. In order to determine the effect of nativeovalbumin and mannose-conjugated ovalbumin on the prevention of S. typhimurium adherence to chickensmall intestine, 60 one-day-old chicks were randomly assigned to 3 groups, with two replicates and tenbirds per pen. Groups 1, 2 and 3 received normal diet, diet containing 0.5% native ovalbumin and dietcontaining 0.5% mannose-conjugated ovalbumin, respectively, for 12 days. On day 3, all groups received1.3 × 106 CFU of S. typhimurium orally. On days 4, 7 and 10, two chicks from each group were killed andmean log 10 of CFU (colony forming unit) of Salmonella per 1 g tissues of cecum, liver and spleen wasdetermined. Four chickens from each group were killed on day 12 and were examined as described above.The results showed that in group 3, number of viable Salmonella in cecum, liver and spleen was lower thangroups 1 and 2. However, the difference was significant only in cecum on days 4 and 7 (P