Abstract
BackgroundGut health in poultry depends on the balance between the host, intestinal microbiota, intestinal microscopic features and diet. The effects of insect meal (a promising alternative protein source for poultry feed) on chicken gut morphology have recently been reported, but no data about intestinal microbiota and mucin composition modulation are available. The present study evaluated the effects of dietary Tenebrio molitor (TM) meal inclusion on gut health of free-range chickens by intestinal microbiota, morphology and mucin composition characterization.ResultsOne hundred forty female medium-growing hybrids were divided into 2 dietary treatments (control feed [C] and 7.5% TM inclusion, with 5 replicate pens/treatment and 14 birds/pen) and slaughtered at 97 days of age (2 birds/pen for a total of 10 chickens/diet). The gut microbiota assessment on cecal content samples by 16S rRNA amplicon based sequencing showed higher alpha (Shannon, P < 0.05) and beta (Adonis and ANOSIM, P < 0.001) diversity in birds fed TM diet than C. In comparison with C group, TM birds displayed significant increase and decrease, respectively, of the relative abundances of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes phyla, with higher Firmicutes:Bacteroidetes ratios (False Discovery Rate [FDR] < 0.05). The relative abundance of Clostridium, Oscillospira, Ruminococcus, Coprococcus and Sutterella genera was higher in TM chickens than C (FDR < 0.05). On the contrary, TM birds displayed significant decrease of the relative abundance of Bacteroides genus compared to the C group (FDR < 0.05). Gut morphology evaluation by morphometric analysis on small intestine revealed similar villus height, crypt depth and villus height to crypt depth ratio between C and TM birds. Characterization of gut mucin composition by periodic-acid Schiff, Alcian Blue pH 2.5 and high iron diamine staining on small and large intestine showed unaffected mucin staining intensity in TM chickens when compared to C group.ConclusionsDietary TM meal inclusion may positively modulate the gut microbiota of the free-range chickens without influencing the intestinal morphology and mucin composition. Since the rapid growth of chickens directly depends on morphological and functional integrity of the digestive tract, the gut health assessment by a post mortem multidisciplinary approach appears to be fundamental.
Highlights
Gut health in poultry depends on the balance between the host, intestinal microbiota, intestinal microscopic features and diet
The present study aims to investigate the effects of Tenebrio molitor (TM) meal utilization on intestinal microbiota, morphology and mucin composition of free-range chickens, proposing a standardized multidisciplinary post mortem approach for the assessment of gut health in poultry when dietary modifications occur
These differences were demonstrated by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which showed a clear separation of the microbiota as a function of the diet (Fig. 1)
Summary
Gut health in poultry depends on the balance between the host, intestinal microbiota, intestinal microscopic features and diet. The effects of insect meal (a promising alternative protein source for poultry feed) on chicken gut morphology have recently been reported, but no data about intestinal microbiota and mucin composition modulation are available. Gut health has been a focus of major research efforts in production animals, since it can be considered a synonymous to animal health and is of vital importance to animal performance [1]. The latter aspect has a key role in poultry industry, which requires animals capable of growing rapidly within a short period of time. Several feed substances have been reported to widely affect gut health in poultry, either by directly modifying intestinal morphology [7, 8] and mucin composition [9, 10], or indirectly by modulating intestinal microbiota [3, 11]
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