Dr. Fernando Leite receives Lynn Jones Memorial Award for Best Oral presentation at CRWAD

Dr. Fernando Leite, a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Richard Isaacson, won the Lynn Jones Memorial Award for the best oral presentation at the 97th Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases (CRWAD). His talk entitled “Lawsonia intracellularis vaccination decreases Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium shedding in co-infected pigs” presented the results of the work  he did in collaboration with Drs. Gebhart, Singer, and Isaacson at the University of Minnesota.

Please join us in congratulating Fernando for his award!

Abstract: Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and Lawsonia intracellularis are two of the most prevalent intestinal pathogens of swine. S. Typhimurium causes diarrhea but also results in subclinical persistent colonization of pigs and can lead to food borne illnesses. S. enterica is responsible for over 1 million cases of food borne illness per year in the United States. L. intracellularis infection has been found as a risk factor for increased S. Typhimurium shedding in swine. The objective of this study was to investigate if vaccination against L. intracellularis could lead to decreased S. Typhimurium shedding. To test this hypothesis, groups of nine pigs were either challenged with S. Typhimurium, S. Typhimurium and L. intracellularis, S. Typhimurium and vaccinated against L. intracellularis, or S. Typhimurium L. intracellularis and vaccinated against L. intracellularis. A non-infected control group served as a negative control. Fecal shedding of S. Typhimurium was monitored using an enrichment most probable number method two days after infection and weekly thereafter until animals reached the age of 14 weeks. The co-challenged vaccinated group had a tendency of shedding the least S. Typhimurium and at one-week post infection is when the greatest differences among groups was observed and the vaccinated co-challenged group shed significantly less Salmonella (p>0.05) than the group co-infected without vaccination and the group challenged with Salmonella alone. These differences were of 1.63 and 2.12 Log10 organisms per gram of feces, respectively. The instestinal microbiome of these animals is being investigated to understand how it may have impacted Salmonella shedding levels in the different treatments. These results indicate that vaccination against L. intracellularis may aid in the control of S. Typhimurium in herds co-infected with L. intracellularis.