Abstract
The trials were conducted to assess the effects of long-term feeding with phytase transgenic corn (PTC) to hens on laying performance and egg quality, and investigate the fate of transgenic DNA and protein in digesta, blood, tissues, and eggs. Fifty-week old laying hens (n = 144) were fed with a diet containing 62.4% PTC or non-transgenic isogenic control corn (CC) for 16 weeks. We observed that feeding PTC to laying hens had no adverse effect on laying performance or egg quality (P>0.05) except on yolk color (P<0.05). Transgenic phyA2 gene and protein were rapidly degraded in the digestive tract and were not detected in blood, heart, liver, spleen, kidney, breast muscle, and eggs of laying hens fed with diet containing PTC. It was concluded that performance of hens fed diets containing PTC, as measured by egg production and egg quality, was similar to that of hens fed diets formulated with CC. There was no evidence of phyA2 gene or protein translocation to the blood, tissues, and eggs of laying hens.
Highlights
Phosphorus (P) is one of the essential mineral elements for all living organisms
Effects of long-term feeding with phytase transgenic corn (PTC) on laying performance and egg quality
Our previous study demonstrated that, the PTC used in the study has a higher phytase and fat contents, lower phytate contents than the control corn (CC) [12]
Summary
There is fairly low content of available P in plant-sourced feed ingredients. About 80% of P in cereal plants, including corn is stored as phytate-P [1]. Phytate bound P is poorly utilized by monogastric animals, due to low levels of phytase activity in their digestive tracts [2]. Exogenous microbial phytase supplementation in low-P diets has been considered to be one of the most effective ways to reduce P output [4]. This approach is associated with high production costs for microbial phytase and requirement of special care in feed processing, which limits its extensive commercial use in diet [5]
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