Fiber in chicken diet-Campylobacter jejuni: bonus or burden?

Soluble dietary fiber (DF) affects gut development in various ways, depending on the amount and type of fiber. There is an urgent need for a better understanding of the relation between specific fiber fractions and microbial colonization. Campylobacter jejuni is the most common cause of food-borne bacterial enteritis worldwide, primarily associated with poultry. A high prevalence of C. jejuni, together with an increasing level of antimicrobial resistance, became a serious problem in human medicine whereas in chickens it has deleterious effects on gut health. Diet may alter the resistance to infection as it influences the microbial dynamics of the gut. Unravelling the link between feeding strategies and gut physiology/immunology in the context of a Campylobacter infection will help to elucidate the cascade of events that influences Campylobacter colonization. Moreover, there are no effective control measures and there is a need to identify key events in the farm-to-fork production chain that are appropriate targets for prevention and control, to reduce food-borne campylobacteriosis. In order to optimize nutritional physiology there is a growing demand for functional dietary supplements, which, besides satisfying nutritional needs, provide benefits for gut health of chickens. The scope of the actual project is to crosslink functions of dietary fiber with the main zoonotic foodborne pathogen, C. jejuni. Finally, elucidating the mechanisms by which dietary fiber influences chicken gut health will help to combat enteric pathogens via diet formulation strategies. The project aims to explore and resolve fundamentals of this interaction for the benefit of animal and human health.