An integrated approach to understanding mucosal immunity to Campylobacter infection in the chicken

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This project uses a new way of working, by combining modelling and experimental approaches together in a way that both informs each arm of the project, but more importantly brings them together allowing us to better understand the complex interactions of the mucosal immune response to the bacterial pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. C. jejuni is the most common cause of foodborne bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide, with the overwhelming majority of cases associated with chicken. Despite the fact that around 70% of UK retail chicken is contaminated with Campylobacter our understanding of its infection biology in the broiler chicken in surprisingly limited. Our recent work has begun to elucidate the innate immune response to infection of the chicken and combining data from these studies with a modelling approach through Bayesian structural equation modelling has allowed us to identify immunological differences between chicken breeds that underlie differences in infection phenotype. This project will build upon previous work to model innate, adaptive and regulatory responses during C. jejuni infection to determine which are involved in long-term colonization of the chicken, those associated with clearance of infection and those with poor gut health. Using this combined approach gives us a unique insight as to what is important and how this could be utilized in controls such as vaccines or make improvements to chicken gut health thereby improving animal health and welfare and ultimately reduce the burden of Campylobacter associated with chicken production.