Monire Ahmadian - MSc student of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Mohammad Hadi Sekhavati - Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Hasan Kermanshahi - Professor Department of Animal Sciences Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Ali Javadmanesh - Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Jamshid Razmyar - Associate Professor, Department of Avian Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Necrotic enteritis (NE) is an important intestinal infectious disease caused by clostridium perfringens in commercial poultry flocks. Enteric disease is a major concern in poultry industry because it increases mortality and decreases products. Recent studies of NE have focused on finding different ways to control the disease and on understanding its pathogenesis. Various factors favor the development of experimental NE, including use of coccidial vaccines, combined with netB-positive C. perfringens administration and nutritional factors such as high percentage of NSP. In the present study, 80 male broiler chickens (Ross 308) randomly assigned to a completely randomized design including 2 treatments of 4 replicates and 10 chickens in each replication. Treatments were 1) a corn-soybean meal based diet (Ctrl), and 2) Ctrl contained 250 g wheat/kg diet and simultaneously challenged with coccidiosis vaccine and Clostridium perfringens. Ioculation of Eimeria and clostridia were applied on day 19. The jejunal samples were used to determine the expression of immune-related genes in subjected chickens. Relative expression of TRAF3 gene was evaluated and GAPDH and ACTB were used as reference genes to normalize expression data. Results showed that the combination of challenging factors (i.e. high wheat inclusion plus coccidiosis vaccine plus C. perfringens) increased (P < 0.05) TRAF3 gene expression significantly.

Necrotic enteritis, TRAF3, gene expression, broiler chickens