Bacterial consortium construction for inhibition of Salmonella in chickens

Salmonella enterica is one of the leading causes of bacterial enteritis in humans with consumption of contaminated poultry products being the leading cause of Salmonella infection. Salmonella is often considered a commensal organism within the poultry gut due to its asymptomatic carriage in adult birds making it difficult to clear by the host immune system once established. Understanding the niche Salmonella occupies will aid in the determination or selection for probiotic organisms with overlapping niche occupation metabolically or spatially for inhibition or exclusion of Salmonella within the poultry gut. Probiotics are an often-utilized treatment for reducing the presence of Salmonella within the poultry gut or as a preventative measure via colonization inhibition through the properties of competitive exclusion. Competitive exclusion is a well-known and effective strategy against Salmonella colonization, especially through the administration of undefined chicken cecal contents, effectively blocking Salmonella from establishing within the poultry gut. However, creation of a defined consortium of bacteria capable of replicating an undefined community's ability to eliminate or prevent the colonization of Salmonella has yet to be discovered. Advances in computation and sequencing technologies now allow for rapid metabolic comparisons to find organisms with the greatest overlap with metabolic niche of Salmonella paving the way for in silico predictions of defined anti-Salmonella microbial consortia. This review discusses the niche of Salmonella within the poultry gut and strategies for creating, testing, and evaluating microbial consortia for the ability to inhibit pathogens.