Dietary Puerarin Supplementation Alleviates Oxidative Stress in the Small Intestines of Diquat-Challenged Piglets
1
Laboratory of Animal Nutritional Physiology and Metabolic Process, Key Laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, National Engineering Laboratory for Pollution Control and Waste Utilization in Livestock and Poultry Production, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha 410125, China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100008, China
3
Department of Medicine, Jishou University, Jishou 416000, China
4
Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
5
College of Animal Science and Technology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Animals 2020, 10(4), 631; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10040631
Received: 11 March 2020
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Revised: 2 April 2020
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Accepted: 4 April 2020
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Published: 7 April 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Animal Nutrition)
Simple Summary
The oxidant stress which piglets suffer from during the weaning period has caused huge losses to the pig farm industry. It is important for scientists to find an effective way to alleviate the oxidant stress in weaned piglets. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that dietary puerarin supplementation alleviates oxidative stress in the small intestine of diquat-challenged piglets. Interestingly, dietary puerarin supplementation improved intestinal morphology, cell proliferation, barrier function, and increased Nrf2 and its downstream enzymes in diquat-challenged piglets, which shows that puerarin has potent protective effects against diquat-induced oxidative stress. These findings will be very beneficial to the pig industry, especially to the development of antibiotic-free diets, new anti-inflammatory drugs and the application of puerarin in piglets.
This study was conducted to demonstrate that dietary puerarin supplementation alleviates oxidative stress in the small intestine of diquat-challenged piglets. The results showed that puerarin administration markedly alleviated diquat-induced intestinal injury, which was indicated by the improvement of intestinal morphology, cell proliferation and barrier function. One of the potential mechanisms responsible for this was the decrease in oxidative stress, as evidenced by the increase in activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) in the small intestine. Puerarin increased the protein expression levels of NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and its downstream enzymes, including heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1), glutamate–cysteine ligase catalytic and its modifier subunit (GCLc and GCLm) in the jejunal mucosa of diquat-induced piglets. Puerarin administration improved intestinal morphology, cell proliferation, and barrier function, and increased Nrf2 and its downstream enzymes. These findings indicate that the dietary supplementation of puerarin attenuates the oxidative stress involving Nrf2 signaling pathways in diquat-challenged piglets.
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Keywords:
puerarin; diquat; piglets; oxidative stress; Nrf2 pathway
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MDPI and ACS Style
Li, M.; Yuan, D.; Liu, Y.; Jin, H.; Tan, B. Dietary Puerarin Supplementation Alleviates Oxidative Stress in the Small Intestines of Diquat-Challenged Piglets. Animals 2020, 10, 631. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10040631
AMA Style
Li M, Yuan D, Liu Y, Jin H, Tan B. Dietary Puerarin Supplementation Alleviates Oxidative Stress in the Small Intestines of Diquat-Challenged Piglets. Animals. 2020; 10(4):631. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10040631
Chicago/Turabian StyleLi, Meng, Daixu Yuan, Yanhong Liu, Hui Jin, and Bie Tan. 2020. "Dietary Puerarin Supplementation Alleviates Oxidative Stress in the Small Intestines of Diquat-Challenged Piglets" Animals 10, no. 4: 631. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10040631
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