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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2009, p. 1074-1079, Vol. 75, No. 4
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00983-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Potential To Reduce Escherichia coli Shedding in Cattle Feces by Using Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) Forage, Tested In Vitro and In Vivo

Natalie C. Berard,¹ Richard A. Holley,² Tim A. McAllister,³ Kim H. Ominski,¹ Karin M. Wittenberg,¹ Kristen S. Bouchard,¹ Jenelle J. Bouchard,¹ and Denis O. Krause^1,4*

Departments of Animal Science,¹ Food Science,² Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba,⁴ Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada³

Received 30 April 2008/ Accepted 14 November 2008

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There is a growing concern about the presence of pathogens in cattle manure and its implications on human and environmental health. The phytochemical-rich forage sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) and purified phenolics (trans-cinnamic acid, p-coumaric acid, and ferulic acid) were evaluated for their ability to reduce the viability of pathogenic Escherichia coli strains, including E. coli O157:H7. MICs were determined using purified phenolics and acetone extracts of sainfoin and alfalfa (Medicago sativa), a non-tannin-containing legume. Ground sainfoin or pure phenolics were mixed with fresh cattle feces and inoculated with a ciprofloxacin-resistant strain of E. coli, O157:H7, to assess its viability at –20°C, 5°C, or 37°C over 14 days. Forty steers were fed either a sainfoin (hay or silage) or alfalfa (hay or silage) diet over a 9-week period. In the in vitro study, the MICs for coumaric (1.2 mg/ml) and cinnamic (1.4 mg/ml) acids were 10- to 20-fold lower than the MICs for sainfoin and alfalfa extracts. In the inoculated feces, the –20°C treatment had death rates which were at least twice as high as those of the 5°C treatment, irrespective of the additive used. Sainfoin was less effective than coumaric acid in reducing E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r in the inoculated feces. During the animal trial, fecal E. coli numbers declined marginally in the presence of sainfoin (silage and hay) and alfalfa silage but not in the presence of hay, indicating the presence of other phenolics in alfalfa. In conclusion, phenolic-containing forages can be used as a means of minimally reducing E. coli shedding in cattle without affecting animal production.

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Fecal shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a concern in beef and dairy cattle production (18, 20). Feeding strategies that include high levels of forage reduce the abundance of E. coli excreted but are generally regarded as an uneconomical practice because they result in decreased growth rates and milk production in animals (5). Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a high-quality forage that can support high levels of production (3, 32) but not as high as that of grain-based diets (24). In many countries, niche markets for forage-fed beef and dairy products have developed (38; http://www.organicagcentre.ca/NewspaperArticles/na_org_vs_natural.asp), and phytochemical-containing forages might have a role. One such forage is sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia), which is a perennial temperate forage legume. Sainfoin is drought resistant and high in protein, has good agronomic properties, and contains moderate condensed tannin levels (3 to 5% of dry matter) (22, 25, 26).

In western Canada, the production environment is unique with respect to the extremely low temperatures during the winter (13). The soil is frozen during the winter, and urine and feces do not penetrate below the surface. During spring thaw, the soil is still frozen, and accumulated manure mixes with snowmelt and contaminates surface water with phosphorus and zoonotic pathogens (e.g., E. coli) via runoff, which is a public health concern (16, 30).

Phytochemicals/tannins have antimicrobial properties against E. coli (9, 14, 28, 40). The use of a high-quality phytochemical/tannin-containing forage may have the dual benefit of being a good-quality forage, as well as reducing E. coli shedding. We are not aware of any studies that have assessed the use of the tannin-containing forage sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) for its ability to reduce fecal shedding of E. coli under western Canadian winter conditions (29, 33). Sainfoin can support high levels of animal production (6, 39), but the long-term effects of feeding a phytochemical/tannin-containing forage on E. coli shedding are not known. This may be a concern because there is now evidence that tannin-resistant strains of E. coli have been isolated from the digestive tracts of ruminants (36, 42). In this research, we hypothesized that phenolic compounds and sainfoin extracts would reduce the survival rate of pathogenic and nonpathogenic E. coli in vitro. Additionally, we hypothesized that feeding sainfoin to feedlot cattle during a Canadian winter would reduce generic E. coli shedding in feces.

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Bacterial cultures.
E. coli O157:H7 (human isolate; isolated in 2006) was obtained from Karlowski (Clinical Microbiology, Health Sciences Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). Escherichia coli 12 and 13 (human isolates; isolated in March 2005) are from our own laboratory collection (Department of Animal Science, University of Manitoba, Canada). Both E. coli strains were isolated from the digestive tracts of ulcerative colitis patients. A ciprofloxacin-resistant strain of E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r) was isolated by daily transfers of 500 µl of an overnight culture of E. coli O157:H7 to 9.5 ml of fresh Mueller-Hinton broth (Becton Dickinson, Sparks, MD), with a ciprofloxacin (Fluka, Buchs, Switzerland) concentration starting at 0.005 µg/ml. The ciprofloxacin concentration was increased daily by twofold, ending with a final concentration of 2.6 µg/ml.

MICs of phenolic acids.
Ferulic acid (Fluka, Milwaukee, WI), para-coumaric acid (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO), and trans-cinnamic acid (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) were each solubilized in 100% acetone to a concentration of 15 mg/ml and further diluted with sterile 0.9% NaCl to a final concentration of 4 mg/ml. Sterile 96-well plastic plates with lids (Corning, NY) were used to perform the assay. To each well, with the exception of the first well in each column (top row), 50 µl of Mueller-Hinton broth (Becton Dickinson) was added. To the first well in each column, 150 µl of a test compound solution was added and serially diluted by 1.5-fold increments for the remaining wells in the column. The acetone concentration in the starting well for each compound (first well in each column) was no more than 25%. To ensure that acetone concentrations did not inhibit bacterial growth, an acetone control with an initial concentration of 25% was run simultaneously in the same plate, using the same dilutions as used in the compound assays.

Each culture was prepared by picking four well-separated colonies from a 1-day-old eosin-methylene blue (EMB; Becton Dickinson) agar plate, placing the colonies into Mueller-Hinton broth, and incubating it overnight at 37°C. The cultures were adjusted to achieve a turbidity equal to that of a 0.5 McFarland standard (27) using Mueller-Hinton broth. The cultures were further diluted and added to each well to obtain a final concentration of 5 x 10⁵ CFU/ml (27). On the same plate, a standardization control was also performed using ciprofloxacin (Fluka) at a starting concentration of 0.05 µg/ml. Only one bacterial strain (E. coli O157:H7, E. coli 12, or E. coli 13) was assayed per plate, but all test compound solutions were assayed against each strain. Each plate assay was done in duplicate. The plates were covered, sealed with Parafilm to prevent evaporation, and incubated at 37°C for 16 to 20 h. Following the incubation period, 40 µl of a 0.2-mg/ml colorless solution of p-iodonitrotetrazolium violet (Sigma-Aldrich) was added to each well as an indicator of viability (10). The plates were incubated at 37°C for 1 h. A color change to violet/red (dye reduction) indicated the presence of viable cells, while no color change represented no bacterial activity. The MIC was determined from the well with the lowest concentration of antimicrobial with no color change.

Growth of forage.
Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) were grown at the Brandon Research Station (Brandon, Manitoba, Canada). The forage crops were harvested at the late bud-first flower growth stage, and a second cut (regrowth) was also harvested and made into hay or silage bales. Silage bales were slipped into a plastic silage tube wrapping, and hay was made by sun drying the forage before baling.

Forage preparation, extraction, and condensed tannin measurements.
Forage samples (sainfoin silage, first and second cuts; sainfoin hay, first and second cuts; and alfalfa silage, second cut) were freeze-dried and ground using a sample mill (Cyclotec 1093; Tecator, Höganäs, Sweden) with a 0.5-mm screen. A crude extract was prepared by shaking the ground plant material (60 g) with 600 ml of 70% acetone for 2 h at room temperature in the dark, followed by centrifugation at 210 x g for 10 min to remove all plant material (11). Extracts were then dried by rotary evaporation, weighed, resolubilized with 100% acetone, and diluted by 50% with sterile water. Extractable condensed tannins in the plants were extracted, purified, and measured using the butanol-HCl method as outlined in Terrill et al. (37).

MICs of sainfoin and alfalfa extracts.
Each extract was serially diluted with Mueller-Hinton broth in 96-well plates using the same method as previously described for the phenolic MIC assay. The starting dried extract concentration for each extract was 100 mg/ml in the first well of the column and was serially diluted by 1.2-fold increments for the remaining wells in the column.

Fecal incubation assay.
Rectal fecal samples were collected from 10 steers fed an alfalfa hay diet and pooled together. A subsample (1 g) of feces was taken, diluted 10-fold in buffered peptone water (BPW; Becton Dickinson), and assayed on a tryptone soya agar (Oxoid, Hampshire, England) plate containing 1.5 µg/ml ciprofloxacin to test for the presence of ciprofloxacin resistance before adding E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r to the samples. Three subsamples (2 g) of feces were taken to determine the dry matter content and pH. The pooled sample was subdivided into four portions weighing 1,245 g per sample and placed into large zip-lock plastic bags. Each sample was assigned to one of the following treatments: coumaric acid plus E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r; ground sainfoin, first cut, plus E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r; no additive plus E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r; or a negative control (no E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r or additive added). Two samples were assigned for each treatment.

Bacterial inoculation.
E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r was isolated from a 1-day-old EMB agar plate containing 1.5 µg/ml of ciprofloxacin and inoculated in six tubes of tryptone soya broth (10 ml) containing 1.5 µg/ml of ciprofloxacin. Cultures were held in a shaking incubator overnight at 37°C. Enumeration of all cultures was performed on EMB agar plates containing 1.5 µg/ml ciprofloxacin. The cultures were centrifuged at 3,300 x g for 10 min, and the supernatant was removed. The bacterial pellet was resuspended in sterile water, and the slurry from each tube was added to three of the four fecal samples (the fourth sample was a negative control). Each bag received the slurry from two tubes to ensure that the bacterial concentration would reach approximately 10⁹ cells/g of feces. The bags were hand massaged for approximately 5 min to ensure thorough mixing. A subsample (1 g) from each bag was taken to quantify E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r added using EMB agar plates containing 1.5 µg/ml ciprofloxacin.

Formulation of additives in fecal samples.
The pH of all fecal samples was measured after the addition of compounds or extracts. Two sample bags received 1 g (0.5%, wt/wt) of either p-coumaric acid or ground sainfoin (silage, first cut) and were hand massaged for approximately 5 min. The pH of all the samples after the addition of additives was measured, and three subsamples (1 g) from each sample were taken to measure dry matter. Another subsample (1 g) was taken and used to quantify E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r after the addition of the additives. The four sample bags were further subdivided into six 200-g samples. Each treatment was also subjected to one of three temperatures (in duplicate), 5°C, 37°C, and freeze (–20°C)-thaw (5°C), for 14 days and sampled at 48 h, 1 week, and 2 weeks postinoculation. In the freeze-thaw treatment, samples were immediately frozen at –20°C. Duplicate subsamples were removed from the frozen samples at each sampling time and thawed for 16 h at 5°C to simulate a spring thaw.

E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r quantification.
Two 0.5-g subsamples were taken from each bag and mixed with 4.5 ml of sterile BPW (Becton Dickinson) and serially diluted 10-fold in BPW. Plate counts were performed in duplicate for each sample on EMB containing 1.5 µg/ml ciprofloxacin. Concurrently, pH measurements were taken of all samples. When E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r could no longer be recovered, a resuscitation step was performed, where samples were diluted in BPW (0.5 g in 4.5 ml), incubated at 5°C overnight, and replated on EMB agar with and without 1.5 µg/ml ciprofloxacin to allow damaged cells, if any were present, to recover.

Animal trial.
Animals were cared for in accordance with the guidelines of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (7). The beef cattle trial took place from January to March 2007, with a 2-week adaptation period and a 9-week experimental period, using 40 beef steers (10 animals per pen). Steers were housed in outdoor pens and fed one of four dietary treatments, as follows: sainfoin silage or hay, or alfalfa silage or hay. The first-cut forages were mixed with the second-cut forages to obtain more-consistent nutrient profiles throughout the feeding period. Animals were blocked into dietary treatments by weight and fed an alfalfa silage (pens 1 and 3) or hay (pens 2 and 4) diet for a 2-week adaptation period. Following the alfalfa adaptation period, two pens of cattle were adapted to the sainfoin diets (pen 1, silage; pen 2, hay) with the following sainfoin-to-alfalfa ratios: 25:75 for 2 days, 50:50 for 2 days, 75:25 for 2 days, and 100% sainfoin thereafter. Animals were fed twice a day ad libitum, and water was available ad libitum throughout the entire trial period. Feed intake was measured with feeders equipped with calibrated automatic weigh scales (GrowSafe Systems, Alberta, Canada) so that accurate feed intake measurements could be obtained throughout the experiment.

Fecal grab samples (approximately 500 g) were taken once per week during weeks 1 to 2, weeks 4 to 7, and biweekly thereafter over an 11-week period. A subsample (approximately 3 g) of feces from each animal was pooled by pen following sampling. Pooled samples from each pen were subjected to culture-based quantification of generic E. coli in triplicate. More specifically, three 1-g subsamples were taken from each pooled sample and separately mixed with 9 ml of sterile BPW (Becton Dickinson), serially diluted 10-fold in BPW, and plated on chromogenic E. coli plates (HardyCHROM Coliform EC; Hardy Diagnostics, Santa Maria, CA).

Fecal dry matter.
Three subsamples (3 g) were taken from each sample, weighed, dried in an oven at 60°C overnight, and reweighed to determine the amount of fecal dry matter.

Statistics.
All statistical analyses were performed using the statistical software SAS (SAS 9.1; SAS, Cary, NC). All MIC (for pure phenolic compounds and extracts) and pH (from the fecal incubation assay) data were analyzed using PROC MEANS. Student's paired t test (P < 0.05) was used to determine statistical significance between treatment means. Bacterial numbers from the fecal incubation experiment as well as from the animal trial were transformed to log₁₀ equivalents and subjected to a repeated-measures analysis of variance using PROC MIXED. Tukey-Kramer's multiple-comparisons test was used to determine significant differences (P < 0.05) within a treatment (between time points) and between treatment means. Death rates of E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r in the fecal incubation experiment were determined by using the slope value from the linear regressions which were fit using least-square means of E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r for each treatment.

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MICs of phenolic compounds.
The MICs for ferulic, cinnamic, and coumaric acids were approximately 10⁵-fold less inhibitory than ciprofloxacin (Table 1), and there were no significant differences among E. coli strains. Coumaric (1.2 mg/ml) and cinnamic (1.4 mg/ml) acids were the most inhibitory and ferulic acid (2.8 mg/ml) the least inhibitory. MICs of ferulic, cinnamic, and coumaric acids were 10- to 20-fold more inhibitory than those of sainfoin and alfalfa extracts (Table 1), and the greatest inhibitory effect was with the least mature forage (first cut). First-cut sainfoin silage and hay were the most inhibitory extracts, but we chose to use the silage in subsequent experiments because silage is the preferred forage preservation technique in Canada (Table 1). Condensed tannin concentrations in the forage were as follows (mg/g dry matter): first-cut sainfoin silage, 9.02; second-cut sainfoin silage, 15.58; first-cut sainfoin hay, 8.39; and second-cut sainfoin hay, 23.38.

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TABLE 1. MICs of ciprofloxacin, purified phenolic compounds, and sainfoin and alfalfa forage extracts against various Escherichia coli isolates

Fecal incubation assay.
Ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r) was not isolated from the cattle feces, and E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r seeded into feces could be recovered without background bias. There was no difference between the growth rate of E. coli Cip^r and that of the wild-type E. coli O157:H7 (unpublished data). Escherichia coli O157:H7 Cip^r was recovered when seeded into the cattle feces at approximately 10⁹ cells/ml at time zero and declined in all experiments thereafter, but the rate of decrease depended on the treatment (Fig. 1). At day 14, neither E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r nor generic E. coli could be recovered in any of the treatments. Escherichia coli O157:H7 Cip^r declined the least with the 5°C treatment and had the greatest decline with the –20°C treatment. These results were independent of the inclusion of coumaric acid or ground sainfoin silage (Fig. 1). The amount of dry matter and pH level did not vary significantly (P < 0.05).

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FIG. 1. Death rates of E. coli O157:H7 Cipr cells inoculated in cattle feces, with the addition of either 0.5% (wt/wt) ground sainfoin silage or 0.5% (wt/wt) p-coumaric acid and incubated at different temperatures (–20, 37, or 5°C). Death rates (log10 CFU/g dry feces/day) were calculated as the slope from the average linear regression of each additive and temperature treatment (data not shown). Results shown are death rate averages, with respective standard errors of the means. Statistical significance (P < 0.05) between means is denoted by different letters.

Animal trial.
The animal trial took place during the winter, and ambient temperatures ranged from –27 to –6°C (Fig. 2A), with a wind chill effect as low as –40°C on some days. Feed intake varied significantly (P < 0.05) among treatment groups and weeks. Animal performance did not vary significantly during the trial (P < 0.05).

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FIG. 2. Effects of outdoor temperature (A) and diet (B) on the viability of fecal E. coli spp. over time. Outdoor temperature data (°C) during the trial (A) are presented to show the apparent relationship between outdoor temperature and fecal E. coli numbers (log10 CFU/g dry feces) (B). Temperature data were from Environment Canada (http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/canada_e.html) and are presented as mean weekly temperatures. Fecal samples were collected from animals fed one of the following four diets: sainfoin silage (•), sainfoin hay (), alfalfa silage (), and alfalfa hay (). Week 2 is representative of the control period when all animals were fed an alfalfa (hay or silage) diet prior to the start of the experimental diets. Fecal E. coli sp. numbers are a pooled average for each treatment. Statistical significance (P < 0.05) between means is denoted by different letters. Bracketed points have the same letter(s).

Additionally, feed intake and temperature were significantly (P < 0.05) correlated in the silage (sainfoin and alfalfa)-fed animals but not in the hay (sainfoin and alfalfa)-fed animals (Table 2). Generic E. coli numbers varied by approximately 2 logs during the experiment (Fig. 2B), and the sainfoin (silage and hay)-fed cattle had the lowest generic E. coli numbers overall (Fig. 3). The condensed tannin concentration (mg/g dry matter) for each diet is as follows: alfalfa silage, 1.75; alfalfa hay, 1.11; sainfoin silage, 11.92; and sainfoin hay, 10.54.

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TABLE 2. Animal trial: correlations between various factors

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FIG. 3. Average fecal E. coli sp. numbers measured from the feces of cattle fed either a sainfoin (silage or hay) or alfalfa (silage or hay) diet. Average E. coli sp. numbers (log10 CFU/g dry feces) were measured in fecal samples pooled by treatment (diet). Fecal E. coli sp. numbers were subsequently averaged per treatment during the experimental period (weeks 4 to 11). Data presented are averages, with their respective standard errors of the means shown as vertical lines. Statistical significance (P < 0.05) between means is denoted by different letters.

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We demonstrated that coumaric and cinnamic acids were more efficacious than ferulic acid at inhibiting three strains of E. coli (Table 1). Duncan et al. (9) demonstrated that E. coli O157:H7 was inhibited by the coumarins esculetin, umbelliferone, and scopoletin. Olasupo et al. (28) found that carvacrol, cinnamic acid, diacetyl, eugenol, and thymol were effective at inhibiting Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and E. coli.

Friedman et al. (14) evaluated compounds with hydroxy and methoxy benzenoid ring substitutions against E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, and S. enterica serovar Typhimurium. The increased hydroxylation of a compound enhanced its inhibitory activity while an added methoxy group either enhanced or had no effect on bactericidal activity. Grbic-Galic (17) demonstrated that E. coli could degrade ferulic acid under anaerobic conditions, thus potentially explaining the reduced MIC of ferulic acid (Table 1).

Our in vitro results (Fig. 1) indicate that freeze-thaw (–20°C treatment) had a significant effect in reducing E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r numbers and could be accelerated by the presence of phytochemicals. In contrast, the incubation at 5 and 37°C resulted in almost no reduction of E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r numbers in the no-additive treatments (Fig. 1). The aforementioned results suggest that defecation during spring (5°C) would result in extended E. coli survival (Fig. 1). In contrast, Kudva et al. (20) found that E. coli O157:H7 inoculated in bovine feces survived the longest at –20, 4, and 23°C and that at 37°C, a rapid decline in E. coli O157:H7 numbers could be seen. The viability of E. coli O157:H7 inoculated in untreated bovine manure slurry increased at temperatures below 23°C. In their bovine fecal samples stored at –20°C, E. coli O157:H7 could still be detected after 100 days but not in the bovine untreated slurry samples. This potentially indicates that dry matter content and the type of effluent waste such as fresh feces (solid, no urine) have a different physiological effect on E. coli compared to their effect on manure slurry (low solid content, contains urine).

Our results (Fig. 1) on the increased death rate of E. coli O157:H7 Cip^r during freezing in the presence of phytochemicals are supported by the literature. The use of freezing is commonly used in the food industry to reduce the microbial contamination of food (19, 35, 41) and can even be used to reduce E. coli survival rates in wastewater (15). Cressy et al. (8) demonstrated that combining the essential oil isoeugenol with freeze-thawing increased the death rate of Listeria monocytogenes. Pérez-Conesa et al. (31) demonstrated that carvacrol and eugenol reduced the survival rates of both L. monocytogenes and E. coli in biofilms.

The ciprofloxacin-resistant strain used is a good model for pathogenic E. coli. We base this on the following facts. (i) In Table 1, E. coli O157:H7 was the same strain used to develop the E. coli strain O157:H7 Cip^r, and there were no differences (P < 0.05) in antimicrobial responses between the strains (Table 1). (ii) When E. coli Cip^r could not be cultured at the end of the fecal incubation experiment, we attempted to culture generic E. coli to ensure that the E. coli Cip^r strain was in fact an accurate representation of generic E. coli; we could not grow generic E. coli either. (iii) There was no difference between the growth rate of E. coli Cip^r and that of the wild type. The main reason for using a ciprofloxacin-resistant strain (which is a natural mutant generated in our laboratory) is because this strain makes it easy to isolate and differentiate it from the rest of the bacterial population.

Our in vivo results are in agreement with the work of Wells et al. (40) which demonstrated that phenolic-containing forages inhibit the growth of inoculated E. coli O157:H7 in vitro. In our in vivo experiment, we quantified generic E. coli as opposed to E. coli O157:H7. Generic E. coli was used in our in vivo experiment in order to better assess a rumen-adapted population and to eliminate inoculation effects. The inhibitory effects could be maintained for 9 weeks in an outdoor feedlot trial (Fig. 2B and 3) during a Canadian winter, even when the effects of extreme wind chill were included (Fig. 2A). Apparently, the adaptation observed in generic E. coli to tannins (36, 42) did not occur (Fig. 2B). The numbers of generic E. coli, when plotted on a weekly basis, are highly variable and resulted in a reduction of statistical power. However, if the values are averaged across the experiment, the numbers are numerically lower for sainfoin than for alfalfa, although not statistically different for alfalfa silage. In general, the numbers of generic E. coli we obtained were similar to those of other investigators who have fed forage-based diets to cattle (5).

The decline in generic E. coli numbers at low temperatures (Fig. 2) is difficult to explain. Barboza et al. (1) studied muskoxen and rumen function adaptation in cold temperatures. They found that the passage rate of the fluid phase increased during cold temperatures. The rationale for this is that because the animals are cold, they need more energy, which in ruminants comes primarily from volatile fatty acid absorption in the rumen (12, 34). As discussed in a review by Brosh (4), during extremely cold temperatures, the body must expend more energy to maintain body temperature; therefore, the animal's metabolism increases, as does its feed intake.

Consequently, the passage rate in the rumen increases, as does feed intake. In our study, we found that feed intake varied significantly (P < 0.05) among weeks and diet treatments. Upon statistical analysis, we found that temperature and feed intake were significantly (P < 0.05) correlated to both silage diets but not to the hay diets (Table 2 and Fig. 2A and B). We speculate that feed intake declined during extremely cold temperatures in the silage-fed animals as a result of the feed being frozen (higher moisture content in silage). In contrast, feed intake in the hay-fed cattle actually increased in response to the extremely cold temperatures.

We suspect that the reason that there was no adaptation to the sainfoin was because of the presence of multiple compounds in sainfoin. Barrau et al. (2) demonstrated that most of the antilarval activity in sainfoin was in the acetone-water extract, which contained condensed tannins and the flavonol glycosides rutin, nicotiflorin, and narcissin. In addition, Lu et al. (21) characterized seven cinnamic acid derivatives and nine flavonoid glycosides among the low-molecular-weight extracts in sainfoin.

Although the above discussion emphasized the direct interaction of tannins or phytochemicals with E. coli, an alternative mode of action can be hypothesized. Tannins are inhibitory for structural carbohydrate-fermenting bacteria (e.g., Ruminococcus albus, Ruminococcus flavefaciens, and Fibrobacter succinogenes) (12, 23). Tannins inhibit these bacteria and consequently reduce the release of soluble sugars from the plant cell wall matrix, which would be a source of carbon for E. coli (12). Thus, we suspect that sainfoin could have a dual effect. On the one hand, inhibitory compounds are released, but also the availability of soluble sugars to E. coli declines. In comparison, the alfalfa has virtually no condensed tannins.

We concluded from this study that sainfoin, when added to cattle diets and fed for several months, reduced generic E. coli numbers in fresh feces and that no adaptation occurred. The proposed mode of action is likely via the combined action of phenolic and flavonol glycosides, which have antimicrobial activity (21, 40). By virtue of their different chemical structures, the modes of antimicrobial action are probably different. Consequently, resistance is not likely to develop in a relatively short period of time. One of the most interesting observations was that phytochemicals could enhance the death rate of E. coli O157:H7 when present in the –20°C freeze-thaw treatment and potentially have significant implications for manure management under spring and winter conditions in western Canada. Further studies are required to confirm whether pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 shedding could be reduced in a ruminant production system, as was seen in our in vivo study where generic fecal E. coli shedding was reduced.

 
This research was funded by the Canadian Dairy Commission and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) through the Environmental Technology Assessment for Agriculture (ETAA) program.

We thank Ainsley Little and Stephanie Cheng for their assistance in the laboratory and Terri Garner, Chad Malfait, Janice Haines, and Darcy Catellier for their assistance during the animal trial.

 
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 12 Dafoe Rd., Animal Science Building, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2. Phone: (204) 474-6126. Fax: (204) 474-7628. E-mail: denis_krause{at}umanitoba.ca

Published ahead of print on 19 December 2008.

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2009, p. 1074-1079, Vol. 75, No. 4
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00983-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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