# Influence of an E. coli hyperadherent probiotic on Salmonella intestinal colonization

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF IOWA · 2024 · $77,750

## Abstract

Project Abstract
Salmonellosis continues to be one of the most important causes of food-borne illness in
the U.S. Furthermore, multiple-antibiotic resistant Salmonella strains are becoming
untreatable infectious diseases. Poultry meat and eggs are major sources of Salmonella
food-borne illness, due to carriage of these bacterial pathogens in the intestinal
microbiome. The NIH goal to reduce Salmonella human infections is directly linked to the
USDA goal of reducing carriage of Salmonella in poultry. While these goals have been
high priorities for many years, current control efforts have been uniformly unsuccessful.
Accordingly, new approaches are needed to address this infectious disease problem in
the United States. The long-term goal of our work is to reduce or eliminate carriage of
Salmonella in poultry flocks. The working hypothesis of this proposal is that an
engineered probiotic strain that expresses a key Salmonella adherence factor, type 1
fimbriae, can outcompete pathogenic Salmonella strains for position in the intestinal
microbiome of poultry. Significant reduction of Salmonella carriage in poultry will
significantly improve the food safety of poultry and will decrease the incidence of
salmonellosis. There are two specific aims in this proposal: 1) To optimize the binding
activity of the type 1 FimH gene expressed in E. coli Nissle 1917, 2) Demonstrate that
the hyper adherent E. coli strain can competitively exclude Salmonella strains from
colonizing the intestinal epithelium of the poultry host. At the completion of this project,
we expect to have demonstrate that an engineered E. coli probiotic strain can
significantly reduce intestinal carriage of Salmonella in chickens. The focus of this
project is to provide an avenue to reduce cases of human salmonellosis and reduce the
human infection risks posed by multiple-antibiotic resistant Gram-negative bacteria.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10790453
- **Project number:** 1R03AI180684-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
- **Principal Investigator:** BRADLEY D JONES
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $77,750
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-07-08 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10790453

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10790453, Influence of an E. coli hyperadherent probiotic on Salmonella intestinal colonization (1R03AI180684-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10790453. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*