A blend of functional amino acids and grape polyphenols improves the pig capacity to cope with an inflammatory challenge caused by poor hygiene of housing conditions

Abstract

Background Dietary supplementation with a blend of functional amino acids (AA) and grape extract polyphenols contributes to preserve intestinal health and growth performance of piglets during the post-weaning period. In the present experiment, we assessed if a supplementation with a mix of AA and grape extract polyphenols during the post-weaning period would persist to improve the pig capacity to cope with a subsequent challenge caused by poor hygiene of housing conditions. Eighty pigs weaned at 28 days of age were fed a standard diet supplemented (AAP) or not (CNT) with 0.2% of a blend of AA (glutamine, arginine, cystine, valine, isoleucine, and leucine) and grape extract polyphenols during the post-weaning period (from week 0 to 6). At week 6, pigs were transferred to a growing unit where 50% of pigs previously fed AAP and CNT diets were housed in good and the other 50% in poor hygiene conditions for 3 weeks (from week 7 to 9; challenge period). All pigs were fed a standard growing diet that was not supplemented with AAP. We measured pig growth performance, plasma indicators of inflammation, digestive integrity, and oxidative status, and scored fecal consistency. Differences were considered significant at P ≤ 0.05. Results One week post-weaning, pigs fed AAP had lower plasma concentrations of haptoglobin than CNT pigs (P = 0.03). Six weeks post-weaning, plasma concentrations of diamine oxidase (DAO) were lower (P = 0.03) whereas those of vitamin E and A were greater (P ≤ 0.05) in pigs fed AAP compared to CNT pigs. The prevalence of diarrhea was higher in CNT pigs compared to AAP pigs (P < 0.01). During the challenge period, only pigs previously fed CNT diet had lower growth rate in poor than good conditions (P ≤ 0.05). They had also greater plasma concentrations of haptoglobin and oxidative stress index (OSI) and lower plasma concentrations of vitamin E in poor than good hygiene conditions (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusions Pigs fed AAP diet during post-weaning had less diarrhea and plasma concentrations of a digestive integrity marker, as well as greater plasma concentrations of antioxidant indicators during the post-weaning period. The beneficial effects of AAP supplementation persisted after the post-weaning period as evidenced by the absence of effects of the hygiene challenge on growth and health indicators in pigs previously fed APP. This clearly indicated a greater ability of pigs fed AAP to cope with the poor hygiene conditions.

Increased Dietary Trp, Thr, and Met Supplementation Improves Performance, Health, and Protein Metabolism of Weaned Piglets under Mixed Management and Poor Housing Conditions

“…Challenge models creating poor sanitary conditions for pigs, as used here and by others [11,24,[54][55][56][57][58], could face strong difficulties in standardization. For instance, differences in the resistance/resilience due to genetic-and sex-related factors, the influence of the sanitary conditions of farms considered to be "mixed" on piglet health status, the pathogenic potential of stool used to dirty the facility, the facility sanitation level before beginning the experiment, the variations in pathogenic threshold pressure, and bacterial strain pathogenicity are factors affecting the standardization of models.…”

“…The adoption of good husbandry and sanitary practices during weaning transition is essential for avoiding severe GI dysbiosis, which can lead to diarrhea and reductions in feed efficiency during the nursery stages of production [66]. Surplus dietary AA supplementation for GI microbiome modulation is a potential avenue to be explored for maintaining GI health and homeostasis [54]. For instance, Trp supplementation can increase populations of Lactobacillus and/or Prevotella, which are linked to short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production, while reducing opportunistic pathogens such as Clostridium sp.…”

Effect of diet supplemented with functional amino acids and polyphenols on gut health in broilers subjected to a corticosterone-induced stress

“…Proanthocyanidins, a class of polyphenols from the favonoid family, are the predominant polyphenols in the grape extract used. This AA and polyphenols blend has been previously tested and reported in different conditions 27 , 28 , 39 .

Figure 1 Experimental design of the study.

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