Competitive elimination and virulence property alteration of Campylobacter jejuni by genetically engineered Lactobacillus casei

Probiotics, prebiotics, or a combination of these two referred to as synbiotics, have emerged as a promising natural and alternative approach to make the sustainable animal farming. Previously, we reported that in the presence of prebiotic like components such as peanut flour, Lactobacillus produced more metabolites and inhibited several enteric pathogens. In this study, we tested a genetically modified lactic acid-producing bacterial strain Lactobacillus casei (LC), that produced large amounts of bioactive compounds including conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), in inhibiting enteric bacterial pathogens and improving host immune systems. The genetically engineered LC strain, LC+mcra (overexpressed mcra gene in LC) effectively eliminated Campylobacter jejuni (CJ) in co-culture condition without any stimulation with prebiotic like components. LC+mcra alone inhibited the growth of CJ completely by 48 h (P