Comparison of jejunal digestive enzyme activities, expression of nutrient transporter genes, and apparent fecal digestibility in weaned piglets fed diets with varied sources of fiber

H Chen,P Zheng,J He,B Yu,L Che,Z Huang,D Chen,J Yin,J Yu,J Michiels,X Mao,S De Smet

doi:10.22358/jafs/65651/2015

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different fiber sources on jejunal digestive and absorptive physiology in weaned piglets. One hundred weaned piglets were allotted according to body weight, gender and litter to four dietary treatments. Each treatment was replicated in 5 pens of 5 pigs each. The experimental diets contained 10% of a fiber source: wheat bran (WB), maize fiber (MF), soyabean fiber (SF), or pea fiber (PF). Piglets were fed

Highlights

Recent studies have shown that moderate inclusion of fibers in the diet can protect pigs from intestinal disorders, e.g., post-weaning diarrhoea (Ma et al, 2002), which makes dietary fiber a valuable component to consider in weaning piglet feeds to relieve intestinal damage caused by weaning stress.To make a rational choice of dietary fiber for piglet diets, it is necessary to determine the effect of different fiber sources on digestive physiology
Our study indicates that soyabean fiber (SF) and pea fiber (PF) could promote apparent faecal digestibility in piglets, but this is not accompanied by better jejunal morphology or digestive enzyme activities as compared with wheat bran (WB)
It is known that the glucose transporters: Na+-glucose co-transporter 1 (SGLT1) and facilitated glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2); amino acid transporters: Na+-dependent neutral amino acid transporter (B0), cationic amino acid transporter 1 (CAT1) and excitatory amino acid carrier 1 (EAAC1), and peptide transporter T1 (PepT1) in the small intestinal epithelium are closely associated with nutrient absorption capacity (Regnault et al, 2002; Hu et al, 2008; Roder et al, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Recent studies have shown that moderate inclusion of fibers in the diet can protect pigs from intestinal disorders, e.g., post-weaning diarrhoea (Ma et al, 2002), which makes dietary fiber a valuable component to consider in weaning piglet feeds to relieve intestinal damage caused by weaning stress.To make a rational choice of dietary fiber for piglet diets, it is necessary to determine the effect of different fiber sources on digestive physiology. It is known that the glucose transporters: Na+-glucose co-transporter 1 (SGLT1) and facilitated glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2); amino acid transporters: Na+-dependent neutral amino acid transporter (B0), cationic amino acid transporter 1 (CAT1) and excitatory amino acid carrier 1 (EAAC1), and peptide transporter T1 (PepT1) in the small intestinal epithelium are closely associated with nutrient absorption capacity (Regnault et al, 2002; Hu et al, 2008; Roder et al, 2014) It is not clear how dietary fiber influences nutrient digestibility by regulating jejunal morphological characteristics and nutrient transporters

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Discussion

Conclusion