Supplemental Choline Modulates Growth Performance and Gut Inflammation by Altering the Gut Microbiota and Lipid Metabolism in Weaned Piglets

Abstract

Background Whether dietary choline and bile acids affect lipid use via gut microbiota is unclear. Objectives This study aimed to investigate the effect of choline and bile acids on growth performance, lipid use, intestinal immunology, gut microbiota, and bacterial metabolites in weaned piglets. Methods A total of 128 weaned piglets [Duroc × (Landrace × Yorkshire), 21-d-old, 8.21 ± 0.20 kg body weight (BW)] were randomly allocated to 4 treatments (8 replicate pens per treatment, each pen containing 2 males and 2 females; n = 32 per treatment) for 28 d. Piglets were fed a control diet (CON) or the CON diet supplemented with 597 mg choline/kg (C), 500 mg bile acids/kg (BA) or both (C + BA) in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Growth performance, intestinal function, gut microbiota, and metabolites were determined. Results Compared with diets without choline, choline supplementation increased BW gain (6.13%), average daily gain (9.45%), gain per feed (8.18%), jejunal lipase activity (60.2%), and duodenal IL10 gene expression (51%), and decreased the mRNA abundance of duodenal TNFA (TNFα) (40.7%) and jejunal toll-like receptor 4 (32.9%) (P < 0.05); additionally, choline increased colonic butyrate (29.1%) and the abundance of Lactobacillus (42.3%), while decreasing the bile acid profile (55.8% to 57.6%) and the abundance of Parabacteroides (75.8%), Bacteroides (80.7%), and unidentified-Ruminococcaceae (32.5%) (P ≤ 0.05). Compared with diets without BA, BA supplementation decreased the mRNA abundance of colonic TNFA (37.4%), NF-κB p65 (42.4%), and myeloid differentiation factor 88 (42.5%) (P ≤ 0.01); BA also increased colonic butyrate (20.9%) and the abundance of Lactobacillus (39.7%) and Faecalibacterium (71.6%) and decreased that of Parabacteroides (67.7%) (P < 0.05). Conclusions Choline supplementation improved growth performance and prevented gut inflammation in weaned piglets by altering gut microbiota and lipid metabolism. BA supplementation suppressed intestinal inflammation with no effect on growth performance, which was associated with changed gut microbiota and metabolites.

Moringa oleifera Lam. Peptide Remodels Intestinal Mucosal Barrier by Inhibiting JAK-STAT Activation and Modulating Gut Microbiota in Colitis

“…Choline is a metabolite produced from phosphatidylcholine by some gut microbes with phospholipase D enzymes, which plays an important role in maintaining the structural integrity of cell membranes (17,66,67). Studies have shown that choline supplementation helps maintain intestinal mucosal immune homeostasis and strengthens the intestinal barrier (68). Here, MOP reversed the DSS-induced disturbance of lipid metabolite levels and had a tendency to promote choline increases.…”

Organic Acids Improve Growth Performance with Potential Regulation of Redox Homeostasis, Immunity, and Microflora in Intestines of Weaned Piglets

“…The chyme digestive enzyme activities were not affected by the two acidifiers, which was inconsistent with the previous report [ 45 ]. This discrepancy might be due to the different animal species, physiological stages, dietary structure, and composition of acidifiers [ 38 , 46 ].…”

Dietary Bacitracin Methylene Disalicylate Improves Growth Performance by Mediating the Gut Microbiota in Broilers

“…The role of the gut microbiota has attracted increasing attention, and the gut microbiota is closely related to livestock and poultry production performance [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], nutritional metabolism [ 15 , 23 ], and immune function [ 24 , 25 ]. Predecessors found through the technique of faecal microbiota transplantation that the growth performance of calves after faecal microbiota transplantation was significantly increased [ 21 ], which shows that the growth performance of gut microbiota is improved, but the mechanism of action is still unclear.…”