Stimbiotic supplementation improved performance and reduced inflammatory response via stimulating fiber fermenting microbiome in weaner pigs housed in a poor sanitary environment and fed an antibiotic-free low zinc oxide diet.

Hyun Min Cho,Gemma González-Ortiz,Diego Melo-Durán,Jung Min Heo,Jae Cheol Kim,Michael R Bedford,Gustavo Cordero,François Blachier

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240264

Hyun Min Cho, Gemma González-Ortiz + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240264

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Abstract

This study investigated whether the inclusion of a stimbiotic (STB) can improve performance, influence intestinal microbiota and fermentation activity, and reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines in piglets fed a low zinc oxide diet without antimicrobial growth promotors compared to fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS) and mannan-oligosaccharide (MOS) when housed either in good sanitary (GS) or poor sanitary (PS) environments. One hundred forty-four male pigs (28-day-old) were sorted by initial body weight (BW) and allocated to one of six experimental treatments: 1) GS environment without any additive (GS-CTR); 2) GS environment with 0.01% stimbiotic (GS-STB); 3) PS environment (without cleaning and disinfection of a previously populated room) without any additive (PS-CTR); 4) PS environment with 0.01% STB (PS-STB); 5) PS environment with 0.1% MOS (PS-MOS); and 6) PS environment with 0.2% FOS (PS-FOS). Each treatment had six replicates, with four animals each. Three feeding phases, based on corn, wheat, and soybean meal were available ad libitum for the 42-days of the study. Housing piglets under PS conditions negatively influenced performance, increased plasma tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), affected the fecal microbial populations and increased concentrations of branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA) compared to GS. Stimbiotic improved 42-d-BW under PS conditions (P < 0.05) whereas MOS or FOS had no effect. On d35, plasma TNF-α was reduced with STB in PS (P < 0.05). The ratio between VFA:BCFA increased (P < 0.05) with STB, MOS or FOS in PS, and under GS condition, STB also increased the ratio. Stimbiotic increased the proportion of Clostridiales Family XIII Incertae Sedis and Clostridiaceae, while MOS and FOS increased Selenomonadaceae, Catabacteriaceae and Fibrobacteraceae. These results indicate that STB shifted the intestinal microbiome to favor fiber fermentation which likely contributed to reduced inflammatory response and improved performance, particularly in piglets reared in PS conditions.

Highlights

IntroductionAntimicrobial growth promoters (i.e., antibiotics and zinc and copper; AGP) have long been used as a cost-effective strategy to improve growth performance of piglets through mitigating enteric disease-associated mortality and morbidity [1]
Antimicrobial growth promoters have long been used as a cost-effective strategy to improve growth performance of piglets through mitigating enteric disease-associated mortality and morbidity [1]
The term stimbiotic (STB) has been introduced recently and is defined as non-digestible but fermentable additives that stimulate fiber fermentability but at a dose that is too low that the stimbiotic itself could contribute in a meaningful manner to volatile fatty acid (VFA) production [4, 5]

Summary

Introduction

Antimicrobial growth promoters (i.e., antibiotics and zinc and copper; AGP) have long been used as a cost-effective strategy to improve growth performance of piglets through mitigating enteric disease-associated mortality and morbidity [1]. Inclusion of AGP controls the overall density of microbial activity in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and may suppress pathogenic bacterial challenges. They likely suppress the activity of commensal microbiota that are beneficial for maintaining intestinal integrity and GIT-associated immune system [3]. In this regard, there is considerable interest in monogastric nutrition to increase the fiber fermenting microbiota in the large intestine to minimize dysbacteriosis and improve energy extraction from the fiber fraction of feed, which has long been ignored as a source of energy for growth. Dietary supplementation with or in vivo creation of XOS in the GIT via the action of supplemental enzymes likely result in trivial increments in VFA directly but significant increments indirectly by preferentially stimulating the growth and activity of beneficial bacteria such as Bifidobacterium and other lactic acid producing bacteria in the hind gut of monogastric animals [8,9,10,11,12]

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