High Lever Dietary Copper Promote Ghrelin Gene Expression in the Fundic Gland of Growing Pigs

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to examine the effect of dietary copper supplementation on ghrelin mRNA expression level in the fundic gland of growing pigs. A total of 45 crossbred pigs were randomly assigned to three groups of 15 pigs, five replicates of three animals comprised each group. Pigs were allocated to diets that contained 5mg/kg copper (as the control group), 125mg/kg copper sulfate, or 125mg/kg copper methionine. At the end of the experiment, five pigs were selected at random from each group, slaughtered, and collected the fundic gland for determination of ghrelin mRNA expression level. The results showed that average daily gain, average daily feed intake, absolute weight, serum growth hormone (GH) concentration, and ghrelin mRNA level were higher in pigs fed the diets with 125mg/kg copper methionine and 125mg/kg copper sulfate (P < 0.05), than in pigs fed a diet with 5mg/kg copper. These data suggest that high dietary copper (125mg/kg) appears to increase feed intake and promote weight gain by enhancing the secretion of GH and ghrelin mRNA level in growing pigs.