COLIGO: Oral delivery of selected multivalent oligosaccharides to protect pigs from F18+ E coli infections/diarrhoea (COLIGO)

Gastro-intestinal diseases, such as post-weaning diarrhea and/or edema disease, frequently occur during the weaning period of piglets. Antibiotics are routinely used to combat these infections, but due to the alarming emergence of microbes resistant to these antibiotics, there is an urgent need to develop alternatives.  Some years ago, the laboratory of Veterinary Immunology discovered that F18+ E. coli specifically interacts with blood group ABH determinants on type 1 core chains. A novel approach to combat F18+ E. coli infections could be the use of this type of compounds as anti-adhesive agents and this approach was further investigated in a StarTT project. Here, it was shown that the monomeric compounds could indeed inhibit in vitro binding of F18+ E. coli to porcine intestinal villi. Moreover, it was shown that multimerization of the blood group antigens could enhance efficacy by 250 times. The objective of this project is to develop novel multimeric forms of A6-1with as goal to test the efficacy of these substances in an in vivo F18+ E. coli challenge model. One biotech company has been identified that can produce complex sugars such as blood group A6-1 at a large scale via fermenation. Moreover, this company has expert knowledge on functionalization of these sugars to produce multimeric forms. Therefore, this project proposal involves both the biotech company and UGent.