Characterization of Fatty Acid Digestion of Beijing Fatty and Arbor Acres Chickens

Abstract

The aim of this experiment was to compare the characterization of fatty acid digestion of Beijing Fatty (BF) and Arbor Acres (AA) chickens. One-day-old male AA and BF chickens were raised in the same house, and fed with the same diet. We first evaluated utilization of dietary fatty acids in chickens by the total collection procedure, and chickens were then killed to compare the abundance of intestinal mRNA expression of liver-fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) and intestinal-fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) by Real-time PCR, and also the pH of intestinal mucosa at 3 and 6 weeks of age. Another group of chickens were sampled at 6 weeks of age to compare the total bile acid concentration in serum, and lipase activity in contents of the small intestine. Results showed that compared to AA chickens, BF chickens had higher lipase activity in the content of the small intestine (p<0.05), greater total bile acid content in portal vein blood (p<0.05) at 6 weeks of age, lower intestinal mucosal pH at both 3 weeks (p<0.05) and 6 weeks (p<0.05) of age, and higher abundance of liver-fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) mRNA expression in intestine tissues at 6 weeks of age (p<0.05), and higher digestibility of fatty acids at both 3 and 6 weeks (p<0.05) of age. There was no difference in I-FABP mRNA expression between AA and BF chickens at either age. Thus, BF chickens had greater fatty acids utilization than AA chickens that was associated with L-FABP, lipase activity, bile acid content and intestinal mucosal pH.