Infectious bursal disease (IBD), also known as Gumboro disease, is a highly contagious, immunosuppressive disease of young chickens. Although first observed about 60 years ago, to date, the disease is responsible for major economic losses in the poultry industry worldwide. IBD virus (IBDV), a double-stranded RNA virus, exists as two serotypes with only serotype 1 causing the disease in young chickens. The virus infects the bursa of Fabricius of particularly the actively dividing and differentiating lymphocytes of the B-cells lineage of immature chickens, resulting in morbidity, mortality, and immunosuppression. Immunosuppression enhances the susceptibility of chickens to other infections and interferes with vaccination against other diseases. Immunization is the most important measure to control IBD; however, rampant usage of live vaccines has resulted in the evolution of new strains. Although the immunosuppression caused by IBDV is more directed toward the B lymphocytes, the protective immunity in birds depends on inducement of both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. The interference with the inactivated vaccine induced maternally derived antibodies in young chicks has become a hurdle in controlling the disease, thus necessitating the development of newer vaccines with improved efficacy. The present review illustrates the overall dynamics of the virus and the disease, and the recent developments in the field of virus diagnosis and vaccine research.

Chicken raised under commercial conditions are vulnerable to environmental exposure to a number of pathogens. Therefore, regular vaccination of the flock is an absolute requirement to prevent the occurrence of infectious diseases. To combat infectious diseases, vaccines require inclusion of effective adjuvants that promote enhanced protection and do not cause any undesired adverse reaction when administered to birds along with the vaccine. With this perspective in mind, there is an increased need for effective better vaccine adjuvants. Efforts are being made to enhance vaccine efficacy by the use of suitable adjuvants, particularly Toll-like receptor (TLR)-based adjuvants. TLRs are among the types of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that recognize conserved pathogen molecules. A number of studies have documented the effectiveness of flagellin as an adjuvant as well as its ability to promote cytokine production by a range of innate immune cells. This minireview summarizes our current understanding of flagellin action, its role in inducing cytokine response in chicken cells, and the potential use of flagellin as well as its combination with other TLR ligands as an adjuvant in chicken vaccines.

Huge productivity loss due to infectious diseases in chickens is a major problem and, hence, robust development of the poultry industry requires control of poultry health. Immunization using vaccines is routine practice; however, to combat infectious diseases, conventional vaccines as well as new-generation recombinant vaccines alone, due to relatively weak immunogenicity, may not be effective enough to provide optimum immunity. With this in mind, there is a need to incorporate better and more suitable adjuvants in the vaccines to elicit the elevated immune response in the host. Over last few decades, with the increase in the knowledge of innate immune functioning, efforts have been made to enhance vaccine potency using novel adjuvants like Toll-like receptor based adjuvant systems. In this review, we will discuss the potential use of toll-like receptor ligands as an adjuvant in vaccines against the infectious diseases of chickens.