Metabolomics-based rapid disease diagnostic and performance testing kit development for broiler chickens

不含抗生素、安全的动物产品最受消费者欢迎。到目前为止，与其他肉类相比，鸡肉是加拿大最受欢迎的蛋白质。加拿大鸡肉业致力于改善动物福利，生产不含病原体和抗生素的鸡肉产品。当预防性抗生素停止使用时，鸡体内病原菌的感染率增加，给养鸡业造成重大损失，并促进治疗性抗菌药物的使用。确保加拿大餐盘上的家禽产品安全卫生是一项具有挑战性的任务，如果鸡肉行业能够在疫情爆发前的最早阶段发现和预防疾病，这项任务就可以完成。在这项提案中，来自萨斯喀彻温省大学和艾伯塔大学的一个专家团队将与两个鸡业合作伙伴(加拿大家禽研究委员会、萨斯喀彻温省鸡农)合作进行新的研究，以发现亚临床感染的代谢物信标(生物标记物)。就像金丝雀是煤矿问题的敏感指标一样，血液代谢物(宿主和病原体代谢的最终产物)可以向商业家禽养殖场发出警报，从而能够及早做出反应，防止疾病爆发。基于新陈代谢生物标志物的新诊断技术可在疾病爆发前及早发现感染，这将有助于防止感染在禽群中传播，减少治疗性抗生素的使用，改善家禽福利，降低生产成本，提高加拿大消费者家禽产品的质量和安全性。

Antibiotic-free and safe animal products are the most desirable among consumers. By far, chicken is Canada's most popular protein compared to other meats. The Canadian chicken industry is committed to improving animal welfare and raising pathogen-and antibiotics-free chicken products. When the prophylactic antibiotic use is discontinued, the infection rate of pathogenic bacteria increases in chicken, causing heavy losses to the chicken industry and promoting therapeutic antimicrobial use. Ensuring safe and wholesome poultry products on the Canadian plate is a challenging task, which can be accomplished if the chicken industry can detect and prevent diseases at the earliest stage before the outbreak. In this proposal, a team of experts from the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta will collaborate with two chicken industry partners (Canadian Poultry Research Council, Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan) to conduct novel research to discover metabolite-based beacons (biomarkers) of subclinical infections. Just as canaries serve as sensitive indicators of coalmines problems for coal miners, blood metabolites (the end-products of host and pathogen metabolism) can communicate an alarm to the commercial poultry farms, enabling an early response to prevent disease outbreaks. Novel metabolic biomarkers-based diagnostics for early detection of infections before disease outbreaks will help prevent the infection from spreading within a flock and decrease therapeutic antibiotics use, improve poultry welfare, and reduce production cost and enhance the quality and the safety of poultry products for Canadian consumers.