Evaluation of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis pathogenicity island-1 proteins as vaccine candidates against S. Enteritidis challenge in chickens

Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis) is a major cause of gastrointestinal disease in humans worldwide, which mainly results from the consumption of contaminated poultry meat and eggs. Vaccination of chickens is an important strategy to lower the prevalence of Salmonella in poultry flocks. The S. Enteritidis type 3 secretion system (T3SS) encoded on Salmonella pathogenicity island-1 (SPI-1) is an important virulence factor that plays a role in invasion and systemic spread in chickens. In this manuscript, we evaluated the efficacy of SPI-1 proteins as vaccine candidates for protection against S. Enteritidis oral challenge. Our results demonstrate for the first time that SPI-1 T3SS proteins elicit antigen specific IgG antibody responses in chickens. In one study we show that vaccination with the aforementioned proteins reduces the levels of S. Enteritidis in the liver, but not in the spleen and cecal contents of chickens. However, a second study shows that vaccination of hens with SPI-1 proteins using a seeder model of infection does not affect the levels of S. Enteritidis in the cecal contents or internal organs of progeny obtained from these hens. Hence, the SPI-1 proteins, in conjunction with other proteins, may form important components of subunit vaccines used for protection against colonization by S. Enteritidis in poultry.