The Impact of Dietary Grape Seed Meal on Healthy and Aflatoxin B1 Afflicted Microbiota of Pigs after Weaning.

Iulian A. Grosu,Gina C. Pistol,Ionelia Taranu,Daniela E. Marin

doi:10.3390/toxins11010025

Iulian A. Grosu, Gina C. Pistol + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins11010025

Copy DOI

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of grape seed (GS) meal, aflatoxin (AFB1), or their combination on the large intestine microbiota of weanling piglets. Twenty-four piglets were allocated into four groups based on diet composition: (1) Control group; (2) AFB1 (320 g/kg feed) group; (3) GS group (8% inclusion in the diet); (4) AFB1 + GS group. After 30 days of experiment, the colon content was used for microbiota analyses; after isolation of total bacterial genomic DNA, V3/V4 regions of the 16S rRNA amplicons were sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform. The raw sequences were analyzed using the v.1.9.1 QIIME pipeline software. 157 numbers of OTUs were identified among all four dietary groups with 26 of them being prevalent above 0.05% in the total relative abundance. GS and AFB1 increase the relative abundance of phylum Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, while decreasing the Firmicutes abundance in a synergic manner as compared with the individual treatments. An additive or synergistic action of the two treatments was identified for Lactobacillus, Prevotella and Campylobacter, while rather an antagonistic effect was observed on Lachnospira. The action mechanisms of aflatoxin B1 and grape seed meal that drive the large intestine microbiota to these changes are not known and need further investigations.

Highlights

Aflatoxins are an important group of mycotoxins mainly produced by the Aspergillus flavus and parasiticus species, which contaminates a large quantity of the world’s crops, colonizing cereals and other important animal and human food [1,2]
Extensive studies show that aflatoxin B1 is the most harmful of the aflatoxin group, due to its potent toxicity and immune toxicity when is metabolically activated in the liver [2,3]
Piglets fed for 30 days with a diet contaminated with AFB1 registered a significantly lower body

Summary

Introduction

Aflatoxins are an important group of mycotoxins mainly produced by the Aspergillus flavus and parasiticus species, which contaminates a large quantity of the world’s crops, colonizing cereals (especially maize) and other important animal and human food [1,2]. Extensive studies show that aflatoxin B1 is the most harmful of the aflatoxin group, due to its potent toxicity and immune toxicity when is metabolically activated in the liver [2,3]. Chronic exposure to low levels of aflatoxins is a risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma; based on toxicological data AFB1 has been categorized as a group. A pig with a diet rich in cereals is very exposed to aflatoxins [5]. AFB1 induced depressed appetite, lower growth rate and lower feed conversion efficiency, decreased proteosynthesis, Toxins 2019, 11, 25; doi:10.3390/toxins11010025 www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins

Objectives

Methods

Results