Special Issue "The Impact of Nutrition on Swine Gastrointestinal Tract Health and Microbiota"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Paolo Bosi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Interests: feeding of pigs; weaning; physiology; microbiology; immunity and health of the pig's digestive tract; nutrigenomics of the pig
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the use of in-feed antibiotics is increasingly restricted, while research efforts aimed at studying dietary factors that can protect the intestine from the harmful effects of weaning stress and of massive production systems need to be increased. Nutrition can modulate the main non-immune defense mechanisms of the digestive system, the evolution of the local immune system of the weaning pig and the nutritional factors involved. A proper diet is also expected to rapidly consolidate the establishment of a mature community of microorganisms in the different digestive tracts of pigs. This also concerns the provision of feeds to the suckling piglet. There is also the need to complement basic nutritional knowledge with practical dietary guidelines to continuously maintain porcine gut health and beneficial coexistence between the gut microbiota and the host. Furthermore, it is also necessary to improve knowledge on the best feeding practices to optimize the health in the different digestive tracts that are interconnected but may also express different nutritional needs. This may be particularly for protein and carbohydrate fractions with different digestibility for the host and availability for the gut microbiota. Finally, there is still a market to develop reliable feeding additives to control swine gastrointestinal tract health and microbiota.

Prof. Paolo Bosi
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • pigs
  • gut homeostasis
  • dietary guidelines
  • microbial community
  • feed additives
  • gut barrier
  • creep feed
  • weaning

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Investigation of Early Supplementation of Nucleotides on the Intestinal Maturation of Weaned Piglets
Animals 2021, 11(6), 1489; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061489 - 21 May 2021
Viewed by 598
Abstract
Nucleotides are essential for the development of the gastrointestinal tract and immune function, but their intake with milk by piglets could be insufficient. The effect of nucleotides on growth and health was tested on 98 piglets divided into two groups: NU, orally administrated [...] Read more.
Nucleotides are essential for the development of the gastrointestinal tract and immune function, but their intake with milk by piglets could be insufficient. The effect of nucleotides on growth and health was tested on 98 piglets divided into two groups: NU, orally administrated with 4 mL of a nucleotide-based product (SwineMOD®) at 10, 15, 18, 21, 27 days, or not (CO). Blood and feces were sampled at weaning (26 d, T1), and at 38 d (T2). Per each group and time-point, eight piglets were slaughtered and jejunal Peyer’s patches (JPPs) were collected. NU increased hemoglobin content and hematocrit, but not growth. At weaning, the NU fecal microbiota was characterized by the abundance of Campylobacteraceae, more typical of the growing phase, compared to CO, with a greater abundance of Streptococcaceae. For the blood transcriptome, an initial greater inflammatory activation was seen in CO, while at T2, NU enriched gene sets related to erythropoiesis. The activation of gene groups ranging from epigenetic response to transcriptional regulation evidenced an intense proliferative activity in NU JPPs. NU supplementation did not influence the growth performance of piglets but could have expressed a positive effect on pig microbiota anticipating its maturation at weaning. This immunostimulant activity in the JPPs could moderate the inflammation in the immediate pre-weaning. Full article
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Article
A Moderate Reduction of Dietary Crude Protein Provide Comparable Growth Performance and Improve Metabolism via Changing Intestinal Microbiota in Sushan Nursery Pigs
Animals 2021, 11(4), 1166; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11041166 - 19 Apr 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 642
Abstract
In this paper, we investigated the effects of a diet with a moderate reduction of dietary crude protein (CP) level, supplemented with five crystalline amino acids (Lys, Met, Thr, Try, and Val), on the growth, metabolism, and fecal microbiota of Sushan nursery pigs. [...] Read more.
In this paper, we investigated the effects of a diet with a moderate reduction of dietary crude protein (CP) level, supplemented with five crystalline amino acids (Lys, Met, Thr, Try, and Val), on the growth, metabolism, and fecal microbiota of Sushan nursery pigs. Seventy Sushan nursery pigs with an average body weight of 19.56 ± 0.24 kg were randomly allocated to two experimental dietary treatments: 18% CP (high protein; group HP), and 15% CP (low protein; group LP). We found that the differences in the two diets had no significant effect on the growth performance of Sushan nursery pigs. Nursery pigs on the 15% CP diet showed significantly improved protein, amino acid, and energy utilization. Furthermore, the LP diet cloud optimized the gut microflora composition to some extent. The functional structure of bacterial communities implied improved metabolic capabilities in group LP. Additionally, correlation analysis between fecal microbiota and metabolic profiles confirmed that the increase of beneficial bacterial in the feces was beneficial to the health and metabolism of the nursery pigs. In conclusion, a moderate reduction in the dietary protein level can improve growth and metabolism due to the improvement of intestinal microbiota in Sushan nursery pigs. This finding could provide useful reference data for the application of a different nutrition strategy in indigenous pig production. Full article
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Feeding Marine Polysaccharides to Alleviate The Negative Effects Associated with Weaning in Pigs
Authors: 
J. V. O’Doherty, B. Venardou, R. Rattigan and T. Sweeney
Affiliation: School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

 

Title: Effect of a Polyphenol-Based Additive in Diets of Pigs at Early Stages of Growth
Authors: Gianluca Galassi
Affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie e Ambientali – Produzione, Territorio, Agroenergia, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy

 

 

 

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