Performance, Rumen Microbial Community and Immune Status of Goat Kids Fed Leucaena leucocephala Post-weaning as Affected by Prenatal and Early Life Nutritional Interventions.

Einar Artiles-Ortega,Orelvis Portal,Jeyamalar Jeyanathan,Raciel Lima-Orozco,Veerle Fievez,Pedro Yoelvys De La Fé-Rodríguez,Beydis Reguera-Barreto

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.769438

Einar Artiles-Ortega, Orelvis Portal + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.769438

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Abstract

Leucaena leucocephala represents a local protein source in tropical ruminant diets. However, its full exploitation is impaired by mimosine, unless it is degraded by the rumen microbial community. Recently, the ruminal bacterial communities of newborns were persistently modified through prenatal or postnatal dietary interventions. Such early-life interventions might enhance adaptation of ruminants to Leucaena leucocephala, which was investigated using a 2 × 2 factorial design trial that tested both supplementation of L. leucocephala in the late pregnancy diet of goat does, and supplementation of live yeast to their newborns. The composition of ruminal bacteria, immune status, as well as organic matter digestibility (OMD) and performance of kids were studied during and after the intervention. Ten pregnant goats were divided into two groups: the D+ and D– groups, which either received or did not receive 30 g of L. leucocephala forage meal during the last 7 ± 0.5 weeks of gestation. Twins from each goat were divided into the K+ and K– group (supplemented with or without 0.2 g/d of live yeast from day 3 until weaning at 8 weeks). Rumen samples were collected from 4-, 8-, 14-, and 20-weeks old kids to assess the bacterial community, while immune parameters (white blood cells, immunoglobulin M and G, and chitotriosidase activity) were measured in blood and saliva sampled at 4-, 8-, and 20-weeks. We found a stimulatory effect of the prenatal exposure on the post-weaning dry matter intake of the L. leucocephala supplemented diet, resulting in a higher daily gain and final body weight at 20 weeks in the D+ vs. D– group (406 vs. 370 g DM/d, 85.4 vs. 78.6 g/d, and 15.2 vs. 13.8 kg, respectively). Moreover, Ruminococcus represented a greater proportion of the rumen bacterial community of the D+ vs. D– kids (5.1 vs. 1.6%). Differences in the immune status were relatively small and not thought to be a driving factor of differences in animal performance. Furthermore, postnatal supplementation of live yeast favored maturation of the rumen bacterial community (i.e., greater abundance of Bacteroidetes, in particular Prevotella, and reduced abundance of Firmicutes) and protozoa colonization. Concomitantly, OMD was enhanced post-weaning, suggesting effects of the early-life intervention persisted and could have affected animal performance.

Highlights

Own research showed that in vitro degradation of L. leucocephala forage meal as well as L-mimosine itself was highly influenced by the origin of the inoculum and was more extensive with inoculum from Cuban goats compared to Belgian sheep
We assessed whether the animal performance, immune status and microbial community of goat kids were influenced by a prenatal treatment and/or postnatal intervention
S. jonesii, the first species that had been identified to possess mimosinedegrading properties, belonging to the phylum Synergistetes, was present in all goat kids in low quantities, which is in line with previous reports (Jami et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2016; Wang L. et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Due to the increasing demand for animal-derived food and the restricted availability of good quality forage and concentrates, there is a need to find cheap and readily available alternative feed sources to support livestock production in tropical countries (Kim et al, 2019). Protein-rich leaves from legume trees are such feed resources (Aye and Adegun, 2013) with Leucaena leucocephala as one of the highly productive, palatable, and most widely used legumes in tropical agropastoral systems (Vega et al, 2016; Ahmed et al, 2018). L. leucocephala contains toxic secondary metabolites, i.e., L-mimosine [(S)α-Amino-β-[1-(3-hydroxy-4-oxopyridine)] propionic acid] and its digestive intermediates (isomers of hydroxypyridone; 2,3 and 3,4-DHP). The toxicity of these plant secondary metabolites could be alleviated through degradation by rumen microbes (Akingbade et al, 2001; Angarita et al, 2015). Own research (unpublished data) showed that in vitro degradation of L. leucocephala forage meal as well as L-mimosine itself was highly influenced by the origin of the inoculum and was more extensive with inoculum from Cuban goats compared to Belgian sheep

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