Impact of L-Arginine and L-Glutamine supplementation on growth performance and immune status in weanling pigs challenged with Escherichia coli F4

Autor: M O Wellington, T G Hulshof, K Ernst, A Balemans, G I Page, H M J Van Hees
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Animal Science.
ISSN: 1525-3163
0021-8812
DOI: 10.1093/jas/skad138
Popis: Arginine (ARG) and Glutamine (GLN) have been reported to play significant roles in protein metabolism, immunity, and intestinal health in weanling pigs. The present study investigated the independent and interactive effect of supplementing ARG and GLN on pigs' immune status and growth performance following an E. coli F4 challenge. A total of 240 mixed-sex pigs (24 ± 2 d old; 7.3 ± 0.1 kg BW) were used in a 42-d experiment after selection for E. coli F4 susceptibility. The pigs were group-housed (3 pigs/pen), and pens were randomly assigned to five experimental treatments (n=16 pens/treatment). Experimental treatments were: 1) a wheat-barley-soybean meal-based basal diet (CTRL), 2) a basal diet with 2500 mg/kg zinc oxide (ZnO), 3) a basal diet + 0.5% Glutamine (0.5% GLN), 4) basal diet + 0.5% Arginine (0.5% ARG), and 5) basal diet with 0.5% Glutamine+0.5% Arginine (0.5% GLN+ARG). All Pigs were inoculated with E. coli F4 on d7, d8, and d9 post-weaning. Rectal swabs were taken from each pig and plated on blood agar plates for E. coli F4 presence. Blood and fecal samples were taken to determine the acute phase response and selected fecal biomarkers for the immune response. Growth performance and fecal scores were recorded. Fecal swabs resulted in no positive pig for E. coli F4 before inoculation and 73.3% positive post-inoculation. Diarrhea incidence during d7-14 was significantly lower for the ZnO treatment (P < 0.05). The haptoglobin level on d3 was lower than d10 and d20, irrespective of treatment (P < 0.05). The albumin level was lower on d20 compared to d3 and d10 (P < 0.05). There was no treatment effect on albumin levels regardless of sampling day (P > 0.05). The PigMAP was lowest on d3 and highest on d10 (P < 0.05). We did not observe significant treatment differences (P > 0.05) in myeloperoxidase and calprotectin. Pancreatitis-associated protein was higher in the ZnO (P = 0.001) treatment than in the other treatments. Fecal IgA tended (P = 0.10) to be higher in the ZnO and 0.5% ARG treatments. There were no performance differences, except during d0-7, where the ZnO treatment was lower in ADG and ADFI (P < 0.001), while FE was similar across treatments. In summary, no improved performance was observed with either ARG, GLU, or both. The immune response results showed that the E. coli F4 challenge may have exacerbated the acute phase response; hence, the benefits of dietary treatments did not go beyond immune repair and reduction in inflammation.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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