Immunization of chickens with Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Enteritidis pathogenicity island-2 proteins

Abstract Several structural components of the type III secretion systems (T3SS) encoded by Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-1 and SPI-2 are exposed to the host's immune system prior to/during the infection/invasion process, making them potential vaccine candidates. In this study we evaluated whether chickens vaccinated with SPI-2 T3SS components could mount a significant humoral immune response (as measured by serum IgG titres) and whether these antibodies could be transferred to progeny (as measured by egg yolk IgG titres), and whether vaccinates and progeny of vaccinates could be protected against challenge with SE. The results of our studies show that vaccinated chickens do produce high levels of SPI-2 T3SS specific serum IgG that they are able to transfer to their progeny. It was demonstrated that vaccinates and progeny of vaccinates had lower overall countable recovered Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Enteritidis (SE) per bird in most situations.