The Effect of Various Probiotic Strains or Avilamycin Feed Additive on Immune Defense Markers and Acute-Phase Response to Salmonella Infection in Chickens.

Probiotics are a nutritional tool for disease prevention. It has been proposed that stimulation of immune response could affect the growth-promoting properties of antimicrobial growth promoters as well as the control of foodborne pathogens. The current study compares immune response in the blood of 280 non-infected and Salmonella-infected chickens fed either with the growth promoter avilamycin or with one of five probiotic strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which also showed growth-promoting properties.

Myo-inositol hexakisphosphate degradation by Bifidobacterium infantis ATCC 15697.

The ability of five strains of different bifidobacterial species (Bifidobacterium animalis, B. bifidum, B. infantis, B.

Phytase activity as a novel metabolic feature in Bifidobacterium.

Phytase activity has been detected for the first time in Bifidobacterium spp. These bacteria were able to dephosphorylate phytic acid (myo-inositol hexaphosphate, IP(6)) and generate several myo-inositol phosphate intermediates (IP(3)-IP(5)). B.