Effects of chestnut tannins on intestinal morphology, barrier function, pro‐inflammatory cytokine expression, microflora and antioxidant capacity in heat‐stressed broilers

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of chestnut tannins (CT) on intestinal morphology, barrier function, pro-inflammatory cytokine expression, microflora and antioxidant capacity in heat-stressed broilers. Four hundred 28-day-old male Ross 308 broilers were randomly assigned into four groups, with 10 replicates per group and 10 broilers per replicate. The broilers in the normal (NOR) group were kept at 22 ± 1°C and fed the basal diet, and each of the other three groups were treated with cyclic heat (33 ± 1°C from 0800 to 1800 and 22 ± 1°C from 1800 to 0800) and fed the basal diet with 0 (HT), 1 (CT1) or 2 (CT2) g of CT/kg of diet. The experiment lasted for 14 days. Compared with the HT group, broilers in the NOR and CT2 groups had higher (p < .05) average daily gain and villus height in the jejunum and lower serum d-lactate (p < .001) and diamine oxidase (p < .01) levels. The addition of 2 g CT/kg of diet increased the total antioxidant capacity (p < .001) and superoxide dismutase activities (p < .05) and zonula occludens-1 mRNA expression level (p < .05) and decreased the malondialdehyde concentration (p < .01) and mRNA expression levels of interleukin-6 (p < .001) and nuclear factor kappa B (p < .001) in the jejunal mucosa of heat-stressed broilers. The populations of Escherichia coli and Clostridium in the jejunum (p < .01) and caecum (p < .05) of broilers in the HT group were higher than those in the NOR and CT2 groups. In conclusion, the addition of 2 g CT/kg of diet seemed to be a feasible means of alleviating the negative effects of heat stress on the growth performance and intestinal function of broilers.

The effect of Epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate on small intestinal morphology, antioxidant capacity and anti‐inflammatory effect in heat‐stressed broilers

“…The pro‐inflammatory cytokines, such as LITAF (similar to TNF‐α in mammals), produced during the inflammatory process induced by infectious factors can disrupt the intestinal tight junction barrier (Al‐Sadi, Guo, Ye, Rawat, & Ma, ). Our result also showed that heat stress increased the pro‐inflammatory cytokine expression, specifically, the expression of LITAF in the jejunum of chickens, which enhanced the intestinal permeability and damaged mucosal barrier; which agreed with previous reports (Liu et al, ). Emerging evidence confirmed that the NF‐κB is a central regulator of inflammation, innate immunity and intestinal barrier function (Nenci et al, ).…”

“…Heat stress caused an increase in intestinal permeability that was associated with an decrease in claudin‐1 expression (Dokladny et al, ). These results demonstrated that heat stress impaired the gut morphology and increased the intestinal permeability in chickens (Liu et al, ; Song et al, ).…”

“…Heat stress also caused the disorders of the antioxidant system (Habashy, Milfort, Rekaya, & Aggrey, 2018) and resulted in increased intestinal permeability to pathogens and endotoxins, which contribute to intestinal barrier breakdown and inflammatory response (Awad, Hess, & Hess, 2017;Dokladny, Zuhl, & Moseley, 2017). Up to now, many dietary manipulations, such as plant extracts (Liu, Li, Zhao, & Deng, 2018;Song et al, 2018), probiotic mixture (Song et al, 2014) and betaine (Saeed et al, 2017), were used to improve intestinal antioxidation property and barrier function of heat-stressed chicken.…”

Effect of chestnut wood extract on performance, meat quality, antioxidant status, immune function, and cholesterol metabolism in broilers

“…On the other hand, it is believed that hydrolysable tannins have a positive role in growth performance and health status in chickens ( Schiavone et al., 2008 ). Hydrolysable tannic acid is made from wood extract that has higher polyphenolic compounds ( Kumar and Vaithiyanathan, 1990 ; Liu et al., 2018 ). Supplementation of tannins could improve the body weight gain in rabbits ( Liu et al., 2012 ) and broilers ( Dong et al., 2015 ; Xiong et al., 2016 ).…”

“…(2009) found that supplementation of 250 or 500 mg/kg chestnut tannins had no significant effects on body weight gain and feed-to-gain ratio, whereas 1,000 mg/kg diets reduced the final body weight in broilers. Furthermore, chestnut tannins could improve intestinal morphology, cytokine expression, and antioxidant activities in broilers ( Liu et al., 2018 ). Dietary supplementation of chestnut wood extract (CWE) as hydrolysable tannins could reduce carcass fat deposition and water-holding capacity of meat and increase polyunsaturated fatty acids in fat tissues of pigs ( Rezar et al., 2017 ).…”