McDonald’s Corp. plans to curtail antibiotics use in its U.S. chicken, a move that could help kick-start a broader food-industry response to growing public-health alarm around drug-resistant bacteria.

The world’s largest restaurant chain said that over the next two years it would stop selling McNuggets and other chicken products in the U.S. made from birds raised with antibiotics that are important to human health. McDonald’s said it would continue to permit suppliers to use antibiotics that aren’t deemed important for human...