Oral immunization with a novel attenuated Salmonella Gallinarum encoding infectious bronchitis virus spike protein induces protective immune responses against fowl typhoid and infectious bronchitis in chickens

Fowl typhoid (FT), a septicemic disease caused by Salmonella Gallinarum (SG), and infectious bronchitis (IB) are two economically important avian diseases that affect poultry industry worldwide. Herein, we exploited a live attenuated SG mutant, JOL967, to deliver spike (S) protein 1 of IB virus (V) to elicit protective immunity against both FT and IB in chickens. The codon optimized S1 nucleotide sequence was cloned in-frame into a prokaryotic constitutive expression vector, pJHL65. Subsequently, empty pJHL65 or recombinant pJHL65-S1 plasmid was electroporated into JOL967 and the resultant clones were designated as JOL2068 and JOL2077, respectively. Our results demonstrated that the chickens vaccinated once orally with JOL2077 elicited significantly (p < 0.05) higher IBV-specific humoral and cell-mediated immunity compared to JOL2068 and PBS control groups. Consequently, on challenge with the virulent IBV strain at 28(th) day post-vaccination, JOL2077 vaccinated birds displayed significantly (p < 0.05) lower inflammatory lesions in virus-targeted tissues compared to control groups. Furthermore, 33.3% (2 of 6) of birds vaccinated with JOL2077 vaccine had shown virus recovery from tracheal tissues compared to 100% (6 of 6) recovery obtained in both the control groups. Against wild-type SG lethal challenge, both JOL2077 and JOL2068 vaccinated groups exhibited only 10% mortality compared to 80% mortality observed in PBS control group. In conclusion, we show that JOL2077 can induce efficient IBV- and carrier-specific protective immunity and can act as a bivalent vaccine against FT and IB. Further studies are warranted to investigate the potential of JOL2077 vaccine in broiler and young layer birds. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13567-018-0588-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.