Enteromorpha polysaccharide - zinc replacing prophylactic antibiotics contributes to improving gut health of weaned piglets

Chunyan Xie; Yumei Zhang; Kaimin Niu; Xiaoxiao Liang; Haihua Wang; Junwei Shan; Xin Wu

doi:10.1016/j.aninu.2021.01.008

Enteromorpha polysaccharide - zinc replacing prophylactic antibiotics contributes to improving gut health of weaned piglets

Anim Nutr. 2021 Sep;7(3):641-649. doi: 10.1016/j.aninu.2021.01.008. Epub 2021 Jul 2.

Authors

Chunyan Xie^{1

2}, Yumei Zhang^{1

3}, Kaimin Niu^{3

2}, Xiaoxiao Liang⁴, Haihua Wang⁵, Junwei Shan⁵, Xin Wu^{1

3

2}

Affiliations

¹ College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, Hunan 410128, China.
² Institute of Biological Resources, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang 330096, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Engineering Laboratory for Pollution Control and Waste Utilization in Livestock and Poultry Production Hunan Provincial Engineering Research Center for Healthy Livestock and Poultry Production, Changsha, Hunan 410125, China.
⁴ Henan Zhongke Ground Food Co., Ltd. Zhengzhou, Henan 450001, China.
⁵ Qingdao Seawin BioteSch Group Co., Ltd, Qingdao, 266071, China.

Abstract

This research aimed to study whether Enteromorpha polysaccharide-zinc (EP-Zn) can act as an alternative to antibiotics in weaned piglet feeds. Two hundred and twenty-four weaned piglets from 14 pens were randomly assigned into 1 of 2 groups according to their body weight and litter size (7 pens/group). The piglets in the antibiotics group were fed with olaquindox at 400 mg/kg and enduracidin at 800 mg/kg basal diet, and piglets in the EP-Zn group were fed with EP-Zn at 800 mg/kg basal diet. One piglet per pen was selected to collect samples after 14 d of feeding. Results showed that EP-Zn supplementation significantly increased the plasma anti-oxidants level compared with the antibiotics group. However, a nonsignificant difference was observed in growth performance between treatment groups. Additionally, the intestinal tight junction (TJ) protein expression and the histopathologic evaluation data showed that EP-Zn contributed to improving intestinal development. Further, piglets in the EP-Zn group had a lower level of intestinal inflammation-related cytokines including IL-6 (P < 0.001), IL-8 (P < 0.05), IL-12 (P < 0.05) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (P < 0.001), and showed an inhibition of the phosphorylation nuclear transcription factor-kappa B (p-NF-κB) (P < 0.05) and total NF-κB (P < 0.001) level in the jejunal mucosa. Taken together, it is supposed that EP-Zn, to some extent, would be a potent alternative to prophylactic antibiotics in improving the health status of weaned piglets.

Keywords: Enteromorpha polysaccharide-zinc chelate; Intestinal development; Prophylactic antibiotic; Weaned piglet.