Contamination of poultry and poultry products by Salmonella enterica SerovarEnteritidis (SE) continues to be problematic even though biosafety managementpractices have aided in reduction of the SE burden. Identification of molecularmarkers linked to disease resistance loci would further reduce SE burden byenabling selection for genetic resistance. The objectives of this study weretherefore to evaluate specific genomic regions for resistance to SE burden inyoung broiler-cross chicks and to evaluate the interaction of allele with damline and sex. Three hatches of F1 chicks were produced by crossing sires from abroiler breeder male line with hens from three highly inbred lines (Fayoumi15.2, and MHC-congenic G-B1 and G-B2 Leghorn). At 1 d of age, the chicks wereintraesophageally inoculated with SE phage type 13a. Spleen and cecal contentsamples were harvested at 1 wk, and the levels of SE were quantified by serialplate dilution. Each of the F1 chicks was genotyped with four microsatellitesthat had previously been shown to be linked to antibody response to SE vaccine.All four microsatellites had a significant (P < or = 0.05) main effect orinteraction with dam line or sex on the level of SE in spleen and cecalcontents.