Live attenuated anticoccidial vaccines for chickens

Chicken coccidiosis, caused by infection with single or multiple Eimeria species, results in significant economic losses to the global poultry industry. Over the past decades, considerable efforts have been made to generate attenuated Eimeria strains, and the use of live attenuated anticoccidial vaccines for disease prevention has achieved tremendous success. In this review, we evaluate the advantages and limitations of the methods of attenuation as well as attenuated Eimeria strains in a historical perspective. Also, we summarize the recent exciting research advances in transient/stable transfection systems and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-based genome editing developed for Eimeria parasites, and discuss trends and challenges of developing live attenuated anticoccidial vaccines based on transgenesis and genome editing.

Automated summary

This review evaluates the advantages and limitations of attenuation methods and attenuated Eimeria strains, and summarizes recent advances in transient/stable transfection systems and CRISPR-based genome editing for Eimeria parasites. It also discusses the trends and challenges in developing live attenuated anticoccidial vaccines based on transgenesis and genome editing.