Growth-promoting factors in malt distillers dried solubles

Abstract

The dried solubles from maize distillers in the United States have long been used as ingredients of feeding-stuffs. Their protein content and high levels of B vitamins were originally the principal reasons for their inclusion in poultry mashes, but in recent years attention has been concentrated on the unidentified growth factor(s) they appear to contain. Numerous workers have investigated the factor(s) and probably the first report was that of Synold, Carrick, Roberts & Hauge (1943a, b). The Purdue group (Novak & Hauge, 1948) later announced their isolation of the unidentified growth factor in distillers dried solubles, with the rat as experimental animal, and proposed the name vitamin B,,. Further work, however, has revealed a much more complicated situation, and it now seems likely that unidentified growth factors exist in distillers dried solubles, dried whey, fish solubles, fermentation residues, liver fractions, grass juice and possibly other common ingredients of feeding-stuffs. The possibility that part of the response to sources of unidentified growth factors is due to their mineral content has been investigated in Texas by Dannenburg, Reid, Rozacky & Couch (1955) and at Cornell by Morrison, Scott & Norris (1955) and Morrison, Dam, Norris & Scott (1956). We have investigated this aspect, in so far as it relates to our more practical conditions, and have found that under such conditions the response to the ash of malt distillers solubles appears to be due to manganese (Jaffe & Wakelam, 1958). O'Dell & Savage (1957) have suggested that zinc may also be involved, and it seems that the warnings of Briggs (1956) were apposite in this matter. Apart from this possible contribution by the inorganic fractions of the various sources of unidentified factors, the extensive literature on the responses to the organic fractions is somewhat confused as to the identity or otherwise of the factors provided by the several materials. Numerous attempts have been made to clarify the issues involved, including reviews by Menge, Combs, Hsu & Shorb (1952), Combs, Sweet, Jones, Romoser & Bishop (1954), Norris (1954, I955), and Couch, Kurnick, Svacha & Reid (1957). In the latest review from the Cornell group Scott (1957) differentiates five factors: fishsolubles factor (A), fermentation-solubles factor (B), grass-juice factor (C), mineral factor (D) and protein factor (E). It is suggested that distillers solubles provide B

Water-Soluble Vitamins, Part II (Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B6, Miscellaneous)

“…Many papers indicate the existence of several such factors, some of them mineral. A useful review of the literature by Wakelam & Jaffe (192) accompanies their report of a stimulation of growth of chicks and poults by malt distillers' solubles. The activity which remained after ashing was traced to Mn (193 ), in contrast to earlier work of the Texas group (194) who found Mo responsible for the growth stimulating effects of their sample of distillers' solubles.…”