Publications by authors named "Johanna M J Rebel"

Recently, the Netherlands has shifted toward more welfare-friendly broiler production systems using slower-growing broiler breeds. Early post-hatch feeding (EF) is a dietary strategy that is currently used in commercial broiler production to modulate the gut microbiota and improve performance and welfare. However, there is a knowledge gap in how both breed and EF and their interplay affect gut microbiota composition and diversity, inflammatory status, and broiler behavior.

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Background: Post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) is a frequently occurring health and welfare issue in weaned piglets. Behavioral changes indicating impaired health may be detectable before the onset of signs and could be useful to detect the development of PWD early, enabling targeted and timely interventions. Current algorithms enable automated behavioral classification on the group level, while PWD may not affect all piglets in one pen and individual level analysis may be required.

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Modern broiler breeds allow for high feed efficiency and rapid growth, which come at a cost of increased susceptibility to pathogens and disease. Broiler growth rate, feed efficiency, and health are affected by the composition of the gut microbiota, which in turn is influenced by diet. In this study, we therefore assessed how diet composition can affect the broiler jejunal gut microbiota.

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Endotoxins released from poultry feces have been associated with impaired human health. Because endotoxins are released from gram-negative intestinal bacteria, it was hypothesized that dietary strategies may influence endotoxin excretion via modulation of gut microbiota. We therefore tested dietary strategies that could potentially reduce cloacal endotoxin levels in broiler chickens.

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This study aimed to identify whether early-life conditions in broiler chickens could affect their behavior and welfare, and whether or not this was associated with an altered gut microbiome composition or diversity. Broilers were tested in a 2 x 2 factorial design with hatching conditions [home pen (OH) or at the hatchery (HH)] and enrichment (dark brooder (EE) or no brooder (NE) until 14 days of age) as factors ( = 6 per treatment combination). Microbiota composition was measured in the jejunum on days (d) 7, 14, and 35 and in pooled fecal samples on day 14.

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In and around poultry farms, high concentrations of endotoxins are found that have a negative impact on the health of farmers and local residents. However, little is known about the effects of chronic exposure to endotoxins on the health of poultry. The aim of this study was to identify effects of chronic exposure to airborne endotoxins (E.

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A large variety of clinical manifestation in individual pigs occurs after infection with pathogens involved in porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC). Some pigs are less prone to develop respiratory disease symptoms. The variation in clinical impact after infection and the recovery capacity of an individual animal are measures of its resilience.

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Background: Conventional pig housing and management conditions are associated with gastrointestinal pathophysiology and disease susceptibility in early life. Developing new strategies to reduce both therapeutic and prophylactic antibiotic use is urgent for the sustainable swine production globally. To this end, housing methodology providing effective environmental enrichment could be a promising alternative approach to reduce antibiotic usage, as it has been proven to positively influence pig welfare and immune status and reduce susceptibility to infections.

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The skin is potentially an important vaccine delivery route facilitated by a high number of resident antigen presenting cells (APCs), which are known to be stimulated by different Toll-like receptor agonists (TLRa). In this study, neonatal and adult pigs were vaccinated in the skin using dissolving microneedle patches to investigate the immuno-stimulatory potential of different TLRa and possible age-dependent differences early after vaccination. These patches contained TLR1/2a (Pam3Cys), TLR7/8a (R848) or TLR9a (CpG ODN) combined with inactivated porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) or with an oil-in-water stable emulsion.

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Vaccination of neonatal pigs could be supportive to prevent porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), which is an important porcine pathogen causing worldwide welfare and health problems in pigs of different age classes. However, neonatal immunity substantially differs to adults, thus different vaccines may be required in neonateal pigs. We examined if the immunogenicity and efficacy of inactivated PRRSV (iPRRSV) vaccines in neonatal pigs could be improved with adjuvants containing oil-in water (O/W) emulsions with or without Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists and by altering the delivery route from intramuscular (i.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Various factors influence appetite, including environmental elements like stress and temperature, as well as specific animal traits such as learning history and feeding preferences.
  • * The review aims to explore the biological mechanisms of appetite in humans and animals, focusing on how these insights can help modulate and optimize appetite in broiler chickens, especially regarding sustainable feed options.
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The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of a maternal antibiotic administration during the last week of gestation on the early life intestinal development in neonatal piglets. Colonization of the gut with bacteria starts during birth and plays a major role in the intestinal and immunological development of the intestine. We demonstrate that maternal interventions induced changes in the sows (n = 6 to 8 per treatment) fecal microbiota diversity around birth (P < 0.

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infections (CDI) are a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. It is hypothesized that CDI develops due to the antibiotic-induced disruption of the intestinal microbial community structure, which allows to flourish. Here, we pre-treated weaned pigs with the antibiotics Clindamycin or Ciprofloxacin for 1 day, and subsequently inoculated them with a human and pig enteropathogenic strain 078 spores.

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Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists can effectively stimulate antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and are anticipated to be promising adjuvants in combination with inactivated vaccines. In this study, the adjuvant potential of three different TLR-agonists were compared with an oil-in-water (O/W) adjuvant in combination with inactivated porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (iPRRSV) applied by different administration routes: intramuscular (i.m.

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Background: Immediately after birth, the porcine intestine rapidly develops morphologically, functionally, and immunologically. The jejunum, the second part of the small intestine, is of importance for nutrient uptake and immune surveillance. To study the early postnatal development of the jejunum, a meta-analysis was performed on different transcriptomic datasets.

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All multicellular organisms benefit from their own microbiota, which play important roles in maintaining the host nutritional health and immunity. Recently, the number of studies on the microbiota of animals, fish, and plants of economic importance is rapidly expanding and there are increasing expectations that productivity and sustainability in agricultural management can be improved by microbiota manipulation. However, optimizing microbiota is still a challenging task because of the lack of knowledge on the dominant microorganisms or significant variations between microbiota, reflecting sampling biases, different agricultural management as well as breeding backgrounds.

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Background: Gut microbial colonization and development of immune competence are intertwined and are influenced by early-life nutritional, environmental, and management factors. Perturbation of the gut microbiome at young age affects the crosstalk between intestinal bacteria and host cells of the intestinal mucosa.

Results: We investigated the effect of a perturbation of the normal early life microbial colonization of the jejunum in 1-day old chickens.

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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) causes significant economic losses to the pork industry worldwide. Vaccination results often in limited protection. Understanding host immune responses elicited by different PRRSV strains could help to develop more efficacious vaccines.

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Background: Host genetic makeup plays a role in early gut microbial colonization and immune programming. Interactions between gut microbiota and host cells of the mucosal layer are of paramount importance for a proper development of host defence mechanisms. For different livestock species, it has already been shown that particular genotypes have increased susceptibilities towards disease causing pathogens.

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Background: In intensive pig husbandry systems, antibiotics are frequently administrated during early life stages to prevent respiratory and gastro-intestinal tract infections, often in combination with stressful handlings. The immediate effects of these treatments on microbial colonization and immune development have been described recently. Here we studied whether the early life administration of antibiotics has long-lasting effects on the pig's intestinal microbial community and on gut functionality.

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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a major disease affecting pigs worldwide and resulting in considerable economic losses. While PRRS is a global phenomenon, the causative viruses PRRSV-1 (first detected in Europe) and PRRSV-2 (isolated in North America) are genetically and biologically distinct. In addition, the disease outcome is directly linked to co-infections associated with the porcine respiratory disease complex and the host response is variable between different breeds of pigs.

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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is difficult to control due to a high mutation rate of the PRRS virus (PRRSV) and the emergence of virulent strains. The objective of this study was to analyse early and late pathological responses in the respiratory tract after infection with the European PRRSV subtype 3 strain Lena in comparison to two European PRRSV subtype 1 strains: Belgium A and Lelystad-Ter Huurne (LV). For each virus strain, groups of twelve pigs were inoculated, and four pigs per group were euthanized at days 3, 7 and 35 post-infection (p.

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Background: Early-life environmental variation affects gut microbial colonization and immune competence development; however, the timing and additional specifics of these processes are unknown. The impact of early-life environmental variations, as experienced under real life circumstances, on gut microbial colonization and immune development has not been studied extensively so far. We designed a study to investigate environmental variation, experienced early after birth, to gut microbial colonization and intestinal immune development.

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