Total budget:  29.640.000 HUF

Project manager:  Dr. Gábor Mátis

Duration:

from 1st December 2020. to 30th November 2023.

 

Summary:

Antibiotics are routinely used to treat bacterial infections – in particular the commonly arising enteric infections – in farm animals. However, the excessive application of conventional antibiotics has contributed to severe issues, such as to the increasing occurrence of bacterial resistance, which is an urgent problem in human and veterinary medicine as well. Hence, there is a growing demand for alternative drugs that can be effectively used against bacterial infections. The so called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are natural members of the immune system, showing antimicrobial action and possibly influencing the animal’s response to bacterial products. The aim of the present study is to test certain AMPs how they can alleviate the inflammation and free radical production in chickens and pigs as main food producing animals. As intestinal inflammation is often coupled to increased absorption of harmful bacterial compounds, transported directly to the liver, the trials will be carried out on intestinal and hepatic cell cultures, mimicking the interplay of the gut and the liver. These recently established cell cultures from both species provide unique possibilities for modelling stress conditions without the need of huge number of living animals. In this research, we can get new data on the suggested beneficial actions of AMPs, such as inhibiting inflammation and free radical production, and modulating drug metabolism. If our hypotheses are getting confirmed, AMPs can be good candidates for improving treatment strategies of enteric bacterial infections and inflammation in farm animals, leading to reduced antibiotics application and better animal health and food safety