Performance, diarrhea incidence, and occurrence of Escherichia coli virulence genes during long-term administration of a probiotic Enterococcus faecium strain to sows and piglets1

Abstract

As part of an interdisciplinary research project, the performance response of sows and their litters to the probiotic strain Enterococcus faecium NCIMB 10415, as well as some health characteristics of the piglets, were studied. Gestating sows (n = 26) were randomly allotted into 2 groups. The probiotic was administered by dietary supplementation to 1 group of sows and their respective litters (probiotic group), whereas the second group (control group) received no probiotic supplementation. The duration of the treatment was nearly 17 wk for sows (d 90 ante partum until d 28 postpartum) and 6 wk for piglets (d 15 to 56). Body weight and feed consumption were recorded weekly. The frequency of 4 toxin and 5 adhesion genes of putative pathogenic Escherichia coli was monitored weekly (d 7 to 35) by multiplex PCR assays, and fecal consistency of weaned piglets was studied daily. Probiotic treatment of lactating sows led to an overall pre-weaning mortality of 16.2% compared with 22.3% in the control group (P = 0.44). Animal losses during the first 3 d of the suckling period were decreased in the probiotic group (P = 0.09). For piglets (n = 153), which were weaned at 28 d, there were no overall treatment differences in BW gain, feed intake, or feed efficiency. Probiotic supplementation, however, led to nearly a 40% reduction (P = 0.012). The actual percentage of piglets with postweaning diarrhea in the probiotic group was 21% compared with 38% in the control group (P = 0.05). The study on virulence factors of dominant fecal E. coli isolates revealed a high diversity with varying frequency and distribution of each single pathogenicity gene. The 440 isolates carried 29 different pathogenicity gene combinations as well as each of the 9 pathogenicity genes alone. Altogether, isolates with more than 2 pathogenicity genes were quite rare (< or = 10%), and up until d 28 isolates without any pathogenicity gene occurred most frequently. Depending on the time of sampling, one-third or more of all isolates contained est2 or est1b as single gene or in combination with other pathogenicity genes.

Isolation and identification of cadmium- and lead-resistant lactic acid bacteria for application as metal removing probiotic

“…Herranz et al (2001) observed among LAB including some E. faecium strains as nonpathogenic with an ability to produce lactic acid and bacteriocin. In animal management, E. faecium have received more attention as probiotic preparations, such as, in pigs (Macha et al 2004;Scharek et al 2005;Taras et al 2006) and poultry due to having immune system stimulating properties in host and protect animals from gastrointestinal diseases (Taras et al 2006;Vahjen et al 2002). Since E. faecium Pb12 strains survived in the fish intestine without exhibiting the pathogenicity, further experiments were carried out using only this LAB strain among five.…”

Probiotics and antibiotics as additives for sows and piglets during nursery phase

“…Similar results were obtained by Estienne et al (2005), when the authors observed weight gain and satiety for weaning pigs after receiving probiotics and housed in a mixture of litters. However, Taras et al (2006) found no effect of the probiotic on the performance of the animals after weaning. According to these studies, the variation in results obtained from the literature may be related to genetics, the strain used as probiotic and especially to environmental conditions.…”

“…According to Taras et al (2006), while studies with pigs and poultry have shown that probiotics have a positive effect on the feces, many of them show only a slight improvement in weight gain and feed conversion. According to these authors, the challenge may not be high enough to show the benefit of the use of probiotics on this factor.…”

Effect of fermented liquid diet prepared with Lactobacillus plantarum LQ80 on the immune response in weaning pigs

“…Among others, the use of probiotics such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria has been proposed as the most promising approach for maintaining or improving animal health (Stein and Kil, 2006;Lalles et al, 2007). It has been reported that feeding certain probiotic strains to pigs could improve growth performance, prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria and reduce the incidence of diarrhea (Shu et al, 2001;Gardiner et al, 2004;Taras et al, 2006;Casey et al, 2007). At the same time, feeding an FLD prepared with the use of bacteria, such as lactic acid bacteria, has also been shown to improve pig performance and to reduce the number of enteric pathogens (Canibe and Jensen, 2003;Stein and Kil, 2006).…”