Abstract

Infantile diarrhea is a serious public health problem around worldwide and results in millions of deaths each year. The levels and sources of dietary protein are potential sources of diarrhea, but the relationship between the pathogenesis causes of infantile diarrhea and protein intake remains poorly understood. Many studies have indicated that the key to understanding the relationship between the protein in the diet and the postweaning diarrhea of piglets is to explore the influences of protein sources and levels on the mammalian digestion system. The current study was designed to control diarrhea control by choosing different protein levels in the diet and aimed at providing efficient regulatory measures for infantile diarrhea by controlling the protein levels in diets using a postweaning piglets model. To avoid influences from other protein sources, casein was used as the only protein source in this study. Fourteen piglets (7.98 ± 0.14 kg, weaned at 28 d) were randomly allotted to two dietary treatments: a control group (Cont, containing 17% casein) and a high protein group (HP, containing 30% casein). The experiment lasted for two weeks and all animals were free to eat and drink water ad libitum. The diarrhea score (1 = normal; 3 = watery diarrhea) and growth performance were recorded daily. The results showed that the piglets in HP group had persistent diarrhea during the whole study, while no diarrhea was noticed in the control groups. Also, the feed intake and body weights were reduced in the HP groups compared with the other group (P < 0.05). The diarrhea-related mRNA abundances were analyzed by real-time PCR; the results showed that HP treatment markedly decreased the expression of aquaporin (AQP, P < 0.05) and the tight junction protein (P<0.05), but increased inflammatory cytokines (P < 0.01) than those in control group. In addition, the Adenosine 5′-monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway (P < 0.01) was inhibited in the HP group. Intestinal microbiota was tested by 16S sequencing, and we found that the HP group had a low diversity compared the other group. In conclusion, despite being highly digestible, a high casein diet induced postweaning diarrhea and reduced the growth performance of the postweaning piglets. Meanwhile, AQP, tight junction protein, and intestinal immune were compromised. Thus, the mechanism of how a highly digestible protein diet induces diarrhea might be associated with the AMPK signaling pathway and intestinal microbiome.

Highlights

  • In many countries, people are still struggling against infection, allergy, and a lack of powerful nutritional control for the infantile diarrhea [1]

  • Infantile diarrhea is usually distinguished as acute for diarrhea continuing exist for about 2 weeks or acting as a chronic disease if the diarrhea lasts beyond 2 weeks [2]

  • We found that the relative mRNA expression of AQP1 (P < 0:05), AQP3 (P < 0:05), AQP8 (P < 0:05), and AQP10 (Figures 4(a)–4(d)) in ileum was strongly decreased in high casein group piglets, while the difference of relative mRNA expression of AQP4 and AQP5 (Figures 4(e) and 4(f)) between HP and cont in ileum was not noticed

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Summary

Introduction

People are still struggling against infection, allergy, and a lack of powerful nutritional control for the infantile diarrhea [1]. Diarrhea disease induces high morbidity and mortality in children younger than five years [3]. Gastrointestinal illnesses are a major cause of infantile diarrhea, which induces severe morbidity and mortality among young children. The composition of the gastrointestinal microbiota is affected by dietary nutrition intake, for example, the three main nutritional components, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats [5]. Protein is the most essential component of tissues in animals and humans, and, unlike carbohydrates, high concentrations of dietary protein intakes could result in several deleterious metabolites in the gut [6]. While as Zonula occluden-1(ZO-1) and occludin can dynamically affect intercellular permeability. We chose these markers to illustrate the characteristics of diarrhea

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