We conducted this experiment to determine if feeding 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) to weaned pigs would alleviate porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) infection and immune response. Forty-two weaned pigs were allotted to 1 of 6 dietary 25(OH)D3 treatments (5.5, 5.5, 43.0, 80.5, 118.0, 155.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg diet) for 26 days. On day 22 of the trial, all the treatments were orally administrated with PEDV except for one of the 5.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg treatments, which was challenged with the same volume of sterile saline and served as control. Another 5.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg group for PEDV challenge was named CON-PEDV. Average daily gain (p < 0.05) was reduced by PEDV infection. PEDV administration also induced severe diarrhea (p < 0.05), reduction of villous height and the ratio of villous height to crypt depth, and increase of crypt depth and serum diamine oxidase activity (p < 0.05). Serum IgM and complement component 4 levels were increased by PEDV challenge. However, 155.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg supplementation alleviated intestinal damage (p < 0.05) compared with CON-PEDV. Furthermore, 155.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg supplementation downregulated the mRNA abundance of inflammatory cytokines and interferon signal pathway-related genes (p < 0.05) compared with CON-PEDV. These results suggested that dietary supplementation of 155.5 μg 25(OH)D3/kg could alleviate intestinal damage and protect against PEDV-induced inflammatory status.
Keywords: antivirus; diarrhea; intestinal morphology; piglets; vitamin D.