Abstract
Weaning is one of the most stressful challenges in the pig’s life, which contributes to dysfunctions of intestinal and immune system, disrupts the gut microbial ecosystem, and therefore compromises the growth performance and health of piglets. To mitigate the negative impact of the stress on early-weaned piglets, effective measures are needed to promote gut health. Toward this end, we tamed a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain and developed a probiotic Duan-Nai-An, which is a yeast culture of the tamed S. cerevisiae on egg white. In this study, we tested the performance of Duan-Nai-An on growth and health of early-weaned piglets and analyzed its impact on fecal microbiota. The results showed that Duan-Nai-An significantly improved weight gain and feed intake, and reduced diarrhea and death of early-weaned piglets. Analysis of the gut microbiota showed that the bacterial community was shaped by Duan-Nai-An and maintained as a relatively stable structure, represented by a higher core OTU number and lower unweighted UniFrac distances across the early weaned period. However, fungal community was not significantly shaped by the yeast probiotics. Notably, 13 bacterial genera were found to be associated with Duan-Nai-An feeding, including Enterococcus, Succinivibrio, Ruminococcus, Sharpea, Desulfovibrio, RFN20, Sphaerochaeta, Peptococcus, Anaeroplasma, and four other undefined genera. These findings suggest that Duan-Nai-An has the potential to be used as a feed supplement in swine production.
Highlights
The mammalian intestine is home to microorganisms, where trillions of microbes form a complex and dynamic ecosystem
At days 25 and 30, the weight of piglets fed with yeast probiotics (Group A and Group B) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than that in control Group C (Figure 1B)
The results showed that yeast probiotics significantly improved the health of weaned pigs and Duan-Nai-An was more effective than the original S. cerevisiae fermented malt
Summary
The mammalian intestine is home to microorganisms, where trillions of microbes form a complex and dynamic ecosystem. The gastrointestinal microorganisms make great contributions to the host health and the digestive efficiency of nutrients, but they are strongly affected by the host’s diet intake (Amato et al, 2013). Weaning can induce dysfunctions of the intestinal and immune system, compromises the health, growth, and feed intake of piglets, especially during the 1st week after weaning (Campbell et al, 2013). The event can even further disrupt the gut microbial ecosystem and increase susceptibility to bacterial post-weaning diarrhea, causing substantial morbidity and mortality (Campbell et al, 2013)
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