Fig 2.

Effect of feeding BT peptide-supplemented ration on the expression of inflammatory chemokine mRNA (CxCLi2, CXCLi1) in the ceca from experimental chickens with or without infection with S. Enteritidis. One-day-old broiler chickens were randomly distributed into two experimental groups. Each group contained 25 birds fed a balanced, unmedicated corn and soybean meal-based diet that contained either 0 (control) or 24 ppm BT for 4 days. On the fourth day after hatch, all BT feed was removed and replaced with the control diet feed for the remainder of the experiment, and all chickens were orally challenged with 5 × 10⁶ CFU/ml S. Enteritidis. (A) Ceca collected 5 days posthatch (1 day after removal of BT peptide-supplemented diet); (B) ceca collected 11 days posthatch (7 days after removal of BT peptide-supplemented diet). Data represent the means ± SEM from three independent experiments. Data are presented as the fold change in mRNA expression relative to the noninfected, normal ration-fed control chickens (SE⁻/BT⁻). Columns with asterisks are significantly different at either P values of ≤0.05 (*) or P values of ≤0.01 (**) from SE⁻/BT⁻ chickens.