Sumon Sm Mostafizur Rahaman, Kumar Alip, Wu Di, Gharib-Naseri Kosar, Wu Shu-Biao
School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, NSW, 2351, Australia.
Perstorp Animal Nutrition, Singapore.
Poult Sci. 2025 Jun 13;104(9):105441. doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2025.105441.
Organic acids are readily absorbed in the upper gastrointestinal tract, which hinders their optimal delivery to segments where gut health issues mostly occur. Glycerol esters of butyric and valeric acid (BVg) are known for their capacity to release acids within the small intestine. This study evaluated the impact of BVg on the performance and gut health of broilers under a sub-clinical necrotic enteritis (NE) challenge. A total of 1200 Cobb 500 chicks were assigned to four treatments: 1) UC- unchallenged control, 2) CC- NE challenged control, 3) BVg- CC plus BVg (1000, 500, 250 g/ton in starter, grower, and finisher phases), and 4) ANT- CC plus zinc bacitracin and salinomycin. NE challenge was induced via oral gavaging of Eimeria spp. vaccine (d9) and Clostridium perfringens (d14 and d15). Data was analyzed using JMP 16.0 employing one-way and two-way ANOVA with Tukey's test to separate means, and Kruskal-Wallis test was used for non-normally-distributed data. During challenge period (d8-19), BVg-fed birds showed an improvement in AWG and FCR, shifting performance from CC towards UC (P > 0.05). Over d0-35, BVg group had similar performance with CC, however there was no significant difference observed among the BVg, ANT, and UC groups (P > 0.05). Male birds supplemented with BVg had a Bifidobacterium population nearly equivalent to those in the UC and ANT groups. The BVg supplementation showed a similar expression of IL6 and occludin with UC and ANT groups and had a shift of expression of IL6 from CC towards ANT group, and MUC2 and BAT from CC towards the UC group. Furthermore, additive supplementation shifted the oocyst counts from CC group towards the UC and ANT groups (P > 0.05). In conclusion, BVg has the potential to alleviate the NE-induced performance loss and gut health deterioration by modulating gut-centric gene expressions and microenvironment. Further research is warranted to explore its efficacy with varying combinations of other additives under different challenge models.
有机酸在上消化道易于吸收，这阻碍了它们向肠道健康问题主要发生部位的最佳输送。丁酸和戊酸甘油酯（BVg）以其在小肠内释放酸的能力而闻名。本研究评估了BVg对亚临床坏死性肠炎（NE）攻毒条件下肉鸡生产性能和肠道健康的影响。总共1200只科宝500肉鸡被分配到四种处理组：1）UC - 未攻毒对照组，2）CC - NE攻毒对照组，3）BVg - CC组加BVg（在雏鸡、中鸡和大鸡阶段分别为1000、500、250克/吨），4）ANT - CC组加杆菌肽锌和盐霉素。通过口服艾美耳球虫疫苗（第9天）和产气荚膜梭菌（第14天和第15天）诱导NE攻毒。使用JMP 16.0软件进行数据分析，采用单向和双向方差分析及Tukey检验来分离均值，对于非正态分布数据使用Kruskal - Wallis检验。在攻毒期（第8 - 19天），饲喂BVg的鸡在平均日增重（AWG）和饲料转化率（FCR）方面有所改善，生产性能从CC组向UC组转变（P > 0.05）。在第0 - 35天期间，BVg组与CC组生产性能相似，然而在BVg组、ANT组和UC组之间未观察到显著差异（P > 0.05）。补充BVg的雄性鸡双歧杆菌数量几乎与UC组和ANT组相当。补充BVg显示IL6和闭合蛋白的表达与UC组和ANT组相似，并且IL6的表达从CC组向ANT组转变，MUC2和BA T的表达从CC组向UC组转变。此外，添加剂补充使卵囊数量从CC组向UC组和ANT组转变（P > 0.05）。总之，BVg有潜力通过调节以肠道为中心的基因表达和微环境来减轻NE诱导的生产性能损失和肠道健康恶化。有必要进一步研究探索其在不同攻毒模型下与其他添加剂不同组合时的功效。
