Importance of adapted digestion conditions to simulate invitro lipid digestion of broilers in different life stages.

Abstract

Invitro digestion studies demonstrate large potential to gain more and quicker insights into the underlying mechanisms of feed additives, allowing the optimization of feed design. Unfortunately, current invitro digestion models relevant for broiler chickens lack sufficient description in terms of protocols and standardisation used. Furthermore, no distinction is made between the different life phases of these animals (starter, grower, and finisher). Hence, our research aimed to establish adapted invitro digestion conditions, corresponding to the 3 life phases in broilers, with specific focus on lipid digestion. The effect of 3 different bile salt concentrations of 2, 10, and 20mM, and 3 different lipase activities of 5, 20, and 100 U/mL, on invitro lipid digestion kinetics were evaluated using a full factorial design. These values were selected to represent starter, grower, and finisher birds, respectively. Our findings showed that the extent of lipid digestion was mainly influenced by lipase activity. The rate of lipid digestion was affected by an interplay between bile salt concentration and lipase activity, due to possible lipase inhibition at certain bile salt concentrations. Overall, this work resulted in 3 invitro lipid digestion models representative for starter, grower, and finisher birds. In conclusion, this research showed the impact of adapted invitro digestion conditions on lipid digestion kinetics and thus the need for these conditions relevant for each life phase of broilers.