The relationship between villous height and growth performance, small intestinal mucosal enzymes activities and nutrient transporters expression in weaned piglets

Abstract

Intestinal villi are important structures for digesting and absorbing nutrients. It was hypothesized that intestinal villous height (VH) is related to growth performance, and that VH is associated with digestive and absorptive capabilities in piglets. Sixty 21‐d‐old weaned piglets were fed identical diets for 28 days. The piglets were grouped according to jejunal or ileal VH at the end of the experiment, including short, middle and high VH groups. The final BW (quadratic, p = .003), ADG (liner, p = .052; quadratic, p = .030) and G: F (liner, p = .074; quadratic, p = .005) were greater in higher VH piglets compared with the shorter VH piglets. Significant linear relationships were recorded between jejunal VH and maltase (linear, p = .003) and sucrase (linear, p = .004) activities. Besides, jejunal VH was significantly associated with maltase (r = 0.357, p = .007), sucrase (r = 0.394, p = .003) and alkaline phosphate (r = 0.288, p = .033) activities. Jejunal Slc1a1 (linear, p = .004) mRNA expression increased as VH increased, while Slc7a1 (linear, p = .007) expression decreased as VH increased, and Slc1a1 (r = 0.292, p = .031) expression was positively related to VH. In the ileum, Slc5a1 (linear, p = .002) and Slc1a1 (linear, p < .001) expression increased as VH increased, whereas Slc7a1 (linear, p = .045) expression decreased as VH increased. A positive relationship between ileal VH and Slc5a1 (r = 0.331, p = .018), Slc1a1 (r = 0.444, p = .001) and Slc6a19 (r = 0.314, p = .026), respectively, was established. Additionally, Slc7a9 (r = 0.0271, p = .057) expression tended to be positively associated with VH in ileum. In conclusion, the growth performance of piglets increased with increasing VH, which may via affecting mucosal enzymes activities and nutrient transporters’ mRNA expression.

Diurnal changes in the murine small intestine are disrupted by obesogenic Western Diet feeding and microbial dysbiosis

“…It can therefore be estimated that the 12% increase in villus height, as observed between ZT2 and ZT14, represents a 12% increase in absorptive capacity, even without taking into account any additional contributions by the microvilli, which amplify the absorptive surface area by an additional 21-fold 43 , 44 . Such analyses have largely been conducted to determine the translatability of studies on oral drug absorption from rodents to humans 44 , 45 but, indeed, villus height positively correlates with nutrient absorption in a variety of different animals models 46 , 47 as well as following administration of long-acting agonists of the intestinal growth factor, glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) in rodents and humans 48 – 50 . Furthermore, reductions in villus height, such as observed in congenital-, environmental- and infection-induced enteropathies are associated with malabsorption and diarrhea, some of which can be reversed by restoration of villus height 51 – 54 .…”

Effects of dietary supplementation with multispecies probiotics on intestinal epithelial development and growth performance of neonatal calves challenged with Escherichia coli K99

“…Special proteins, including Na + ‐K + ‐ATPase and Ca 2+ ‐Mg 2+ ‐ATPase, are located within cell membranes and regulate ion transport to maintain ion balance inside and outside of cells 26 . Abnormal functioning of ATPases with abnormal degrees of enzyme dysfunction is positively correlated with disease severity 27 28–30 .…”

N-Acetyl-D-glucosamine improves the intestinal development and nutrient absorption of weaned piglets via regulating the activity of intestinal stem cells

“…An abnormal intestinal morphological structure usually affects the growth and development of weaned piglets. When intestinal villi are shortened, resulting in a reduced contact surface between nutrients and villi, this causes absorption and utilization of fewer nutrients by piglets, which in turn reduces growth performance ( Wang et al., 2020a ). In this study, 3 g/kg D-GlcNAc did not affect VH and CD but produced numerically shorter VH and shallower CD, which led to an increase in ileal VH:CD ratio.…”