Long-Term Intake of Pea Fiber Affects Colonic Barrier Function, Bacterial and Transcriptional Profile in Pig Model

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of long-term intake of pea fiber (PF) on colonic health and the underlying mechanism. Fifty weaned piglets were randomly allocated into 2 groups receiving control and fibrous diet with inclusion of PF from weaning to Day 160 postweaning, with 5 pens in each group and 5 pigs in each pen. Compared with control diet, long-term intake of PF diet induced deeper crypt and increased colonic barrier-related protein expression of mucin and sIgA. As indicated by the increased lactobacillus content, pigs fed PF diet had a stimulating effect on bacterial fermentation in the colon, thus a higher concentration of colonic total short chain fatty acid and acetic acid were observed. DNA microarray results suggested that feeding PF diet inhibited 77% of genes (40 downregulated and 12 upregulated genes) related to colonic cancer, immune response, and lipid metabolism, involving in signal pathway such as intestinal immune network for IgA production, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor signaling pathway and nutrient metabolism-related pathways. Collectively, our results suggested that long-term intake of PF would improve colonic function via altering colonic barriers, colonic immune and metabolism-related protein or gene expressions.

Effects of the Replacement of Soybean Meal with Pea as Dietary Protein Source on the Serum Protein Fractions of Broilers

“…Immunoglobulins and the C-reactive protein (CRP) migrate in the γ-globulin area (Erstad 1996;Karagul et al, 2000;Mehmetoglu 2002;Murray, 2003). The long-term intake of pea fiber (PF) was shown to improve colonic function via altering colonic barriers, colonic immunity, and metabolismrelated protein gene expressions (Che et al, 2014). The percentages and concentrations gamma globulin were greater in group P20 compared with group P40 in the current study (p<0.05).…”

Effects of dietary fiber on the antioxidant capacity, immune status, and antioxidant-relative signaling molecular gene expression in rat organs

“…17 The increasing expression of caspase 3 by feeding DF may induce jejunal cell apoptosis; these results disagree with that of a previous study that caspase 3 is downregulated in the colon of pigs receiving PF. 42 This phenomenon may be related to the effects of PF on caspase 3 gene expression in response to different intestinal segments, and the mechanisms might depend on NF-kB signaling pathway. 16 These ndings also need further investigation.…”

Dietary pea fiber increases diversity of colonic methanogens of pigs with a shift from Methanobrevibacter to Methanomassiliicoccus-like genus and change in numbers of three hydrogenotrophs

“…A total of 48 weaned pigs (Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire, weaned at day 28) with an average initial body weight of 7.2 ± 0.5 kg were randomly allocated to 2 groups, PF-supplemented and control (without PF) groups as described in our previous study [18]. Pigs in the PF group were fed with diets containing 10% (30 d post-weaning), 20% (30–90 d post-weaning), or 30% (30–90 d post-weaning) of PF.…”

“…Pigs in the PF group were fed with diets containing 10% (30 d post-weaning), 20% (30–90 d post-weaning), or 30% (30–90 d post-weaning) of PF. The composition of diets and husbandry management has been described before [18]. …”

“…Pea fiber (PF) has been shown to improve human health by regulating glucose response, lipid metabolism, and intestinal frequency [18]. Our previous study demonstrated that supplementation of a soluble dietary fiber, yeast derived β-glucan, significantly increased the diversity of methanogens in the swine colonic digesta in vitro and showed a beneficial effect on the growth of methanogens, which might improve microbial fermentation efficiency in the hindgut of pigs [19].…”