Combined effects of chitosan and microencapsulated Enterococcus faecalis CG1.0007 probiotic supplementation on performance and diarrhea incidences in enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli K88 + challenged piglets

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the combined effects of chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) and a microencapsulated Enterococcus faecalis CG1.0007 probiotic (PRO) on growth performance and diarrhea incidences in enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) K88+ challenged piglets in a 14-d study. Thirty piglets, 7.19 ± 0.52 kg initial BW weaned at 21 ± 1 d, were allotted to 5 treatment groups (n = 6) consisting of a corn–soybean meal diet with no additive (negative control, NC), NC + 0.25% chlortetracycline (positive control, PC), NC + 400 mg/kg COS (COS), NC + 100 mg/kg PRO (PRO) and NC + a combination of COS and PRO (CPRO). Pigs were individually housed in cages, acclimated to treatments for a 7-d period and had ad libitum access to feed and water throughout the study. On d 8, pigs were weighed, blood samples were collected, and then orally challenged with 6 mL (1 × 1011 cfu/mL) of freshly grown ETEC inoculum. During post-challenge period, blood was sampled at 24 and 48 h to determine plasma urea nitrogen (PUN), and diarrhea incidences and fecal consistency scores were recorded from d 9 to 12. On d 14, all pigs were weighed and then euthanized to obtain intestinal tissue samples for histomorphometric measurements. Growth performance responses were similar among treatments during the pre- and post-challenge periods. There were no significant differences in PUN content, incidences of diarrhea, and fecal consistency scores among treatments. The intestinal histomorphology results did not differ significantly among treatments except for PC with increased (P = 0.0001) villus:crypt ratio compared with the NC. Under the conditions of the present study, it can be concluded that supplementation of piglet diets with 400 mg/kg COS, 100 mg/kg microencapsulated PRO or their combination did not significantly improve piglet growth performance both during the pre- and post-ETEC K88+ oral inoculation. Also, there were no significant reduction of incidences and severity of diarrhea after challenge compared with the control group.

Administration of Saccharomyces boulardii mafic-1701 improves feed conversion ratio, promotes antioxidant capacity, alleviates intestinal inflammation and modulates gut microbiota in weaned piglets

“…Growth performance, serum immune, antioxidant parameters, inflammatory parameters and SCFAs were analyzed by one-way ANOVA using Bonferroni test (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Diarrhea rate were analyzed by Chi-square test (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) [19,20]. The bacterial community at the level of phylum, family and genus were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis method followed by Welch's test [13,20].…”

Administration of Saccharomyces boulardii mafic-1701 improves feed conversion ratio, promotes antioxidant capacity, alleviates intestinal inflammation and modulates gut microbiota in weaned piglets

“…Replicate (pen) was considered the experimental unit for analysis of differences in growth performance and diarrhea rate. Individual piglets were considered the experimental unit for analyses of serum [19,20]. The bacterial community at the level of phylum, family and genus were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis method followed by Welch's test [13,20].…”

“…Treatment diets included basal diet (CON), basal diet supplemented with 75 mg/kg aureomycin (Chia Tai Group, Henan, China) (ANT) [14] and basal diet supplemented with × 10 8 CFU/kg S. boulardii ma c-1701 (SB). Basal diets (Table 1) in this study were formulated to meet or exceed NRC (2012) nutritional requirements of piglets in 2 phases (d 0-14 and d [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] after weaning. Each treatment group consisted of 6 replicate pens and each pen consisted 3 male and 3 female piglets.…”

Administration of Saccharomyces boulardii mafic-1701 improves feed conversion ratio, promotes antioxidant capacity, alleviates intestinal inflammation and modulates gut microbiota in weaned piglets

“…Growth performance, serum immune, antioxidant parameters, in ammatory parameters and SCFAs were analyzed by one-way ANOVA using Bonferroni test (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Diarrhea rate were analyzed by Chi-square test (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) [20]. The bacterial community at the level of phylum, family and genus were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis method followed by Welch's test [14].…”

“…Treatment diets included basal diet (CON), basal diet supplemented with 75 mg/kg aureomycin (Chia Tai Group, Henan, China) (ANT) [15] and basal diet supplemented with 1 × 10 8 CFU/kg S. boulardii ma c-1701 (SB). Basal diets (Table 1) in this study were formulated to meet or exceed NRC (2012) nutritional requirements of piglets in 2 phases (d 0-14 and d [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] after weaning. Each treatment group consisted of 6 replicate pens and each pen consisted 3 male and 3 female piglets.…”