Recombinant attenuated salmonella vaccines to reduce Campylobacter colonization in poultry

Campylobacter is an important foodborne pathogen and the most common cause of acquiredfoodborne illnesses in humans (some 1.3 million cases per year with over 500 deaths) but also is aleading cause of hospitalization (over 8000 annually). The majority of human Campylobacterinfections are associated with poor handling of raw chicken or consumption of undercookedchicken.Reducing the Campylobacter load at the farm level and reducing contamination atslaughter are therefore important to prevent transmission to humans and is a high priority. CurtissHealthcare is developing next generation live synthetic vaccines to address bacterial viral fungaland parasitic pathogens.Our technology is centered around the construction of engineeredrecombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines (RASVs) strains with high immunogenicity completesafety and attenuation and an inability to persist or be shed in the environment after administration.In this application we are proposing to build on our successful preliminary work and construct andcharacterize RASVs capable of delivering by course spray/oral immunization multiple conserved C.jejuni protective antigens to prevent infection and persistence of Campylobacter in chickens. Wewill evaluate approximately ten different Campylobacter antigens delivered using RASVtechnology for their ability to generate an immune response in chickens.The best constructs orcombination of constructs will be evaluated in a model of campylobacter colonization in chickensto determine the ability of these vaccines to decrease or eliminate Campylobacter colonization.Ifsuccessful we would look to develop the most promising constructs for licensure by theUSDA.