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Abstract
The tight association between malnutrition and gut microbiota (GM) dysbiosis enables microbiota-targeting intervention to be a promising strategy. Thus, we used a malnourished pig model to investigate the host response and GM alterations under different diet supplementation strategies. Pigs at age of 4 weeks were fed with pure maize diet to induce malnutrition symptoms, and followed by continuous feeding with maize (Maize, n = 8) or re-feeding using either corn-soy-blend (CSB+, n = 10) or millet-soy-blend based (MSB+, n = 10) supplementary food for 3 weeks. Meanwhile, 8 pigs were fed on a standard formulated ration as control (Ref). The effect of nutritional supplementation was assessed by the growth status, blood chemistry, gastrointestinal pathology, mucosal microbiota composition and colon production of short-chain fatty acids. Compared with purely maize-fed pigs, both CSB+ and MSB+ elevated the concentrations of total protein and globulin in blood. These pigs still showed most malnutrition symptoms after the food intervention period. MSB+ had superior influence on the GM development, exhibiting better performance in both structural and functional aspects. MSB+ pigs were colonized by less Proteobacteria but more Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Lachnospira spp. Pearson’s correlation analysis indicated a strong correlation between the abundance of mucosal e.g., Faecalibacterium and Lachnospira spp. and body weight, crown-rump length and total serum protein. In conclusion, the malnutrition symptoms were accompanied by an aberrant GM, and millet-based nutritional supplementation showed promising potentials to restore the reduced GM diversity implicated in pig malnutrition.
Highlights
Malnutrition accounts for nearly half of the deaths among children under 5-year-old in lowand middle-income countries [1]
Compared with Maize, both Corn soy blend with extra micronutrients (CSB)+ and MSB+ improved total serum protein and globulin (p < 0.05, Table 2) with globulin concentrations being similar to Ref (p = 0.70 and 0.51 respectively)
Refeeding with MSB+ and CSB+ only led to numerical reduction of the proinflammatory IL-1beta and IL-6 in blood (Table 2)
Summary
Malnutrition accounts for nearly half of the deaths among children under 5-year-old in lowand middle-income countries [1]. Malnutrition usually develops from inadequate protein and micronutrients intake due to unavailability of food [3, 4]. Corn soy blend with extra micronutrients (CSB) is a widely-applied ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) to treat malnourished children. In recent years, increasing evidence has indicated an essential role of the gut microbiota in the development of malnutrition. The gut microbiota works as a virtual organ involved in the regulation of several host parameters, including polysaccharide digestion [9], immune system development [10], defense against infections [11], synthesis of vitamins and fat storage [11, 12]. Blanton et al has emphasized clearly that a causal relationship exists between the gut microbiota immaturity and malnutrition. Two kinds of invasive species, Ruminococcus gnavus and Clostridium symbiosum transferred from malnourished donors, were found to ameliorate growth and metabolic abnormalities in recipient animals [13]
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