Gräber Tobias, Kluge Holger, Granica Sebastian, Horn Gert, Brandsch Corinna, Stangl Gabriele I
BMC Vet Res. 2014 Sep 9;10:210. doi: 10.1186/s12917-014-0210-y.
The weaning period is critical for stress-related diseases and infections. Currently, large amounts of therapeutic antimicrobials are used to treat infections in the livestock production, especially in piglets. Phytogenic feed additives could provide a useful alternative. We hypothesize, that components in agrimonia species which have been used successfully in humans to treat gastrointestinal infections could also improve the health of piglets. We investigated the effects of Agrimonia procera (AP) on the growth performance of piglets and cytokine expression in isolated porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC).
Here we show that piglets that received a diet with 0.56 g/kg AP for 6 weeks tended to ingest more food (+5.1%; P < 0.10), and were characterized by a higher nitrogen retention (+9.6%, P < 0.05) than the control group without AP treatment. Data from a second experiment reveal that piglets fed a diet with 0.87 g/kg AP for 6 weeks had an improved food conversion ratio (1.46 ± 0.04) compared to those that received none (1.54 ± 0.08) or 8.7 g/kg AP (1.60 ± 0.08) with their diets (P < 0.001). However, the food intake, daily weight gain and dry matter of feces were not affected by the AP treatment. Treatment of PBMC for 1 and 6 h with AP extract (APE) reduced the mRNA abundance of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)? in cells challenged with lipopolysaccharides (LPS) but not in cells without LPS stimulation (P < 0.05). The lower mRNA expression of TNF? was accompanied by a trend towards a lower release of TNF? from these cells (P?=?0.067). After the treatment of PBMC with APE for 6 h, the relative mRNA concentration of interleukin (IL)-1? declined (P < 0.05), whereas that of IL-10 remained unchanged. Treatment of LPS-challenged PBMC for 20 h with varying concentrations of APE did not reveal any effect on cytokine expression and TNF? release.
The results indicate that low dosages of AP may improve the growth performance of piglets and seem to exert antiinflammatory effects in porcine immune cells challenged with LPS.
断奶期对于与应激相关的疾病和感染至关重要。目前，大量治疗性抗菌药物被用于家畜生产中的感染治疗，尤其是仔猪。植物源饲料添加剂可能提供一种有用的替代方法。我们推测，龙芽草属植物中已成功用于人类治疗胃肠道感染的成分也可能改善仔猪的健康状况。我们研究了龙芽草（AP）对仔猪生长性能以及分离的猪外周血单核细胞（PBMC）中细胞因子表达的影响。
我们发现，接受含0.56 g/kg AP日粮6周的仔猪摄食量有增加趋势（增加5.1%；P < 0.10），且与未接受AP处理的对照组相比，氮保留量更高（增加9.6%，P < 0.05）。第二个实验的数据显示，饲喂含0.87 g/kg AP日粮6周的仔猪，其饲料转化率（1.46 ± 0.04）优于未添加AP（1.54 ± 0.08）或日粮中添加8.7 g/kg AP（1.60 ± 0.08）的仔猪（P < 0.001）。然而，AP处理对采食量、日增重和粪便干物质没有影响。用AP提取物（APE）处理PBMC 1小时和6小时，可降低脂多糖（LPS）刺激的细胞中肿瘤坏死因子（TNF）的mRNA丰度，但对未受LPS刺激的细胞无此作用（P < 0.05）。TNF的mRNA表达降低伴随着这些细胞释放TNF的趋势降低（P = 0.067）。用APE处理PBMC 6小时后，白细胞介素（IL）-1β的相对mRNA浓度下降（P < 0.05），而IL-10的相对mRNA浓度保持不变。用不同浓度的APE处理受LPS刺激的PBMC 20小时，未发现对细胞因子表达和TNF释放有任何影响。
结果表明，低剂量的AP可能改善仔猪的生长性能，并且似乎对受LPS刺激的猪免疫细胞具有抗炎作用。
