Pretreatment with probiotics Enterococcus faecium NCIMB 11181 attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium-induced gut injury through modulating intestinal microbiome and immune responses with barrier function in broiler chickens

Table 4 Effect of dietary Enterococcus faecium NCIMB 11181 supplementation on intestinal morphology, histopathological scores and intestinal cells apoptosis index (Tunel) of broiler chickens challenged with Salmonella Typhimurium

Items	ST¹	Villous height, μm	Crypt depth, μm	V/C	HE scores	Tunel
Dosage, mg/kg
0	–	899.2	134.5	6.81	1.46	7767
200	–	957.7	145.4	6.59	1.00	3514
0	+	743.4	133.2	5.58	4.00	7538
200	+	832.2	142.6	5.85	3.40	5391
SEM²		43.27	5.92	0.293	0.334	1275.7
Main factors
0		821.7^a	133.9	6.18	2.81^a	7652^a
200		895.3^b	144.0	6.22	2.09^b	4452^b
Non-challenged		928.3^a	140.5	6.70^a	1.24^b	5641^b
Challenged		788.7^b	137.8	5.71^b	3.70^a	6464^a
Main factors and Interaction (P-value)³
Enterococcus faecium		0.042	0.498	0.537	0.047	0.016
Challenged		0.001	0.251	0.048	0.000	0.037
Enterococcus faecium × Challenged		0.298	0.497	0.264	0.392	0.057

¹Challenged with Salmonella Typhimurium, –, without ST challenged, + , with ST challenged
²SEM, standard error of the mean
³P-value represent the main effect of the diet, the main effect of ST challenged, and the interaction between the dietary treatments and ST challenged
^a,bMeans in the same column without common superscripts differ significantly (P < 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891