Fecal microbial composition associated with variation in feed efficiency in pigs depends on diet and sex

Dietary fiber content and composition affect microbial composition and activity in the gut, which in turn influence energetic contribution of fermentation products to the metabolic energy supply in pigs. This may affect feed efficiency (FE) in pigs. The present study investigated the relationship between the fecal microbial composition and FE in individual growing-finishing pigs. In addition, the effects of diet composition and sex on the fecal microbiome were studied. Fecal samples were collected of 154 grower-finisher pigs (3-way crossbreeds) the day before slaughter. Pigs were either fed a diet based on corn/soybean meal (CS) or a diet based on wheat/barley/by-products (WB). Fecal microbiome was characterized by 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing, clustered by operational taxonomic unit (OTU), and results were subjected to a discriminant approach combined with principal component analysis to discriminate diets, sexes, and FE extreme groups (10 high and 10 low FE pigs for each diet by sex-combination). Pigs on different diets and males vs. females had a very distinct fecal microbiome, needing only 2 OTU for diet (P = 0.020) and 18 OTU for sex (P = 0.040) to separate the groups. The 2 most important OTU for diet, and the most important OTU for sex, were taxonomically classified as the same bacterium. In pigs fed the CS diet, there was no significant association between FE and fecal microbiota composition based on OTU (P > 0.05), but in pigs fed the WB diet differences in FE were associated with 17 OTU in males (P = 0.018) and to 7 OTU in females (P = 0.010), with 3 OTU in common for both sexes. In conclusion, our results showed a diet and sex-dependent relationship between FE and the fecal microbial composition at slaughter weight in grower-finisher pigs

Ontwikkeling van een meetlat voor immuuncompetentie in varkens, vleeskuikens en vleeskalveren

Het doel van dit project is om een “meetlat” te ontwikkelen die de effecten van (voedings)interventies gericht op de verbetering van de immuuncompetentie van varkens, pluimvee en vleeskalveren kan vaststellen. Immuuncompetentie is binnen dit project gedefinieerd als het vermogen van dieren om effectieve responsen van het immuunsysteem te tonen op het moment dat de gezondheid van het dier onder druk wordt gezet. Een meetlat voor immuuncompetentie kan in de toekomst door de diervoedingssector gebruikt worden bij de ontwikkeling en evaluatie van nieuwe voerconcepten, ingrediënten en additieven gericht op de verbetering en ondersteuning van diergezondheid. Het is bekend dat de samenstelling van de voeding van jonge dieren invloed heeft op de functionele ontwikkeling van het maagdarmkanaal en op de samenstelling van de daarin aanwezige microbiota. De interacties tussen de microbiota en de weefsels van het darmkanaal (cross talk) hebben een belangrijke invloed op de ontwikkeling van immuuncompetentie. Daarom wordt in dit project gefocust op de effecten van (voedings)interventies op de microbiota, genexpressie veranderingen in darmweefsel, en morfologische en immunologische veranderen in de darm. De hier gepresenteerde meetlat voor immuuncompetentie is gebaseerd op de resultaten van onderzoek binnen het VDI programma van Feed4Foodure (projecten VDI-11; vleeskuikens, VDI-12; biggen, VDI- 13; gespeende biggen en kalveren) waarin m.b.v. model interventies de effecten van variatie in voersamenstelling op de microbiota samenstelling in het darmkanaal, de biologische responsen van darmweefsel en de zoötechnische dierprestaties zijn onderzocht. In de hier gepresenteerde meetlat worden gemeten effecten in deze studies aan elkaar gerelateerd en functioneel inzichtelijk gemaakt. Dit rapport beschrijft de ontwikkeling en totstandkoming van een eerste versie van de meetlat. Hierbij worden gemaakte keuzes, beperkingen en mogelijkheden van de meetlat bediscussieerd. Tenslotte wordt inzicht gegeven in de mogelijkheden tot verdere verfijningen en de toepasbaarheid van de meetlat

Optimisatoin tactics of disgnostic and treatment of women of reproductive age with dysplastic lesions of sguamosus cervical epitelium and hyperproliferative diseases of the uterus

Cervical cancer frequency ranks second in the structure of cancer among women. HPV is the only proven etiological factor of precancerous lesions and cervical cancer.Given the increasing frequency of adenomyosis and leiomyoma of the uterus and pathology of the cervical epithelium in women with unfulfilled reproductive function and the extension age limits of the reproductive period, organ-preserving methods of treatmentof these pathological conditions is a main priority in gynecology.The aim of this research was to develop approaches to the treatment of cervical pathology in women with hyperproliferative diseases of the uterus

raw NMR dataset + metadata

The objective of this study was to use non-invasive fecal metabolomics to evaluate the effects of contrasting sanitary conditions and associated subclinical health status of pigs. We analyzed fecal metabolite profiles using nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) from pigs aged 14 and 22 weeks. Pigs kept under low and high sanitary conditions (LSC and HSC, respectively) differed in fecal metabolites related to degradation of dietary starch, metabolism of the intestinal microbiome, and degradation of constituents of animal (host) endogenous origin. The metabolites that differed significantly originated from metabolic processes involved in either maintaining nutrient digestion capacity, including metabolism of purines, energy metabolism, bile acid degradation and recycling, or in immune system metabolism. The results showed that the fecal metabolite profiles reflect sanitary conditions under which the pigs are kept. The fecal metabolic profiles strongly resembled previously published profiles of metabolites found in large intestinal digesta in pigs. Fecal valerate content could potentially be used as a biomarker for the immune status of pigs, and kynurenic acid could be used as a biomarker for the porcine inflammatory status of pigs. The use of such non-invasive fecal biomarkers could provide the basis for targeted dietary interventions to reduce the negative impact of elevated immune status on production performance of pigs

Fecal and Blood Metabolites of Pigs

The experimental design of the animal study and the sanitary challenge model used have been described by Van der Meer et al. (2020). Pigs were divided into high sanitary condition (HSC) or to low sanitary condition (LSC), for details please see the original publication by Van der Meer et al. (2020). At the dissection day, three pigs per room were euthanized to collect blood and digesta samples for further analysis. We used colon digesta and blood samples from pigs in this study that received a diet with a basal amino acid (AA) ratios (indicated as “diet AA-B” in the paper of van der Meer et al. 2020) and a protein content of CP 168 g/kg; LSC (n=18) and HSC (n=18). These samples were analyzed by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and by Triple Quad Mass Spectrometry (TQMS). The details of these laboratory analysis are described in the journal article entitled "Sanitary conditions affect the colonic microbiome and the colonic and systemic metabolome of female pigs" (doi: will update accordingly). The data uploaded here are by the format of the Joint Committee on Atomic and Molecular Physical Data (JCAMP). Moreover the metadata file shows the link between the samples and their corresponding group, i.e. HSC or LSC, and other characteristics

Increasing intake of dietary soluble nutrients affects digesta passage rate in the stomach of growing pigs

The passage rate of solids and liquids through the gastrointestinal tract differs. Increased dietary nutrient solubility causes nutrients to shift from the solid to the liquid digesta fraction and potentially affect digesta passage kinetics. We quantified: (1) the effect of three levels of dietary nutrient solubility (8, 19 and 31 % of soluble protein and sucrose in the diet) at high feed intake level (S) and (2) the effect of low v. high feed intake level (F), on digesta passage kinetics in forty male growing pigs. The mean retention time (MRT) of solids and liquids in the stomach and small intestine was assessed using TiO2 and Cr-EDTA, respectively. In addition, physicochemical properties of digesta were evaluated. Overall, solids were retained longer than liquids in the stomach (2·0 h, P<0·0001) and stomach+small intestine (1·6 h, P<0·001). When S increased, MRT in stomach decreased by 1·3 h for solids (P=0·01) and 0·7 h for liquids (P=0·002) but only at the highest level of S. When F increased using low-soluble nutrients, MRT in stomach increased by 0·8 h for solids (P=0·041) and 0·7 h for liquids (P=0·0001). Dietary treatments did not affect water-binding capacity and viscosity of digesta. In the stomach of growing pigs, dietary nutrient solubility affects digesta MRT in a non-linear manner, while feed intake level increases digesta MRT depending on dietary nutrient solubility. Results can be used to improve predictions on the kinetics of nutrient passage and thereby of nutrient digestion and absorption in the gastrointestinal tract.</p

Traits related to the individual feed intake in group-housed broilers and rabbits, and the capacity of broilers to optimise their diet and nutrient intake related to feed efficiency

Feed cost is the main production cost in poultry and rabbits, and represents 50 to 70% of the total production cost. Consequently, feed efficiency is the most important selection criterion in these species. For meat-type producing animals, feed efficiency is defined as the ratio betweenweight gain to feed intake during a given period. Weight gain is relatively easy to obtain at the individual scale, although it is labour intensive. On the opposite, feed intake measurements in individual animals are more difficult to obtain. In chickens, to measure feed intake, birds are housed in individual cages and the feeder has to be weighed at regular intervals. This method has several drawbacks: - Animals are housed individually whereas they are usually reared in groups- Animals are housed in cages whereas they are usually reared on the floor- The measurement is available only for longer periods, usually one measurement per week or every two weeks. This provides a very limited indication of the changes in feed intake, considering that a broiler production cycle is lasting only 5 weeks.The objective of this deliverable is to use automatic feeding stations to obtain individual data of feed intake in group-housed animals, and that are reared in conditions as close as possible to production conditions (e.g., on the floor for chickens, in collective cages for rabbits). Moreover, these feeding stations allow for the continuous collection of data of feed intake and to establish the dynamics of feed intake within a day, and all along the production cycle. These new traits have been correlated to feed efficiency to propose new traits that can be used for both nutrition and genetics studies of feed efficiency in poultry and rabbits

Patterns of community assembly in the developing chicken microbiome reveal rapid primary succession

The fine-scale temporal dynamics of the chicken gut microbiome are unexplored, but thought to be critical for chicken health and productivity. Here, we monitored the fecal microbiome of healthy chickens on days 1-7, 10, 14, 21, 28, and 35 after hatching, and performed 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing in order to obtain a high-resolution census of the fecal microbiome over time. In the period studied, the fecal microbiomes of the developing chickens showed a linear-log increase in community richness and consistent shifts in community composition. Three successional stages were detected: the first stage was dominated by vertically-transmitted or rapidly-colonizing taxa including Streptococcus and Escherichia/Shigella; in the second stage beginning on day 4, these taxa were displaced by rapid-growing taxa including Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcus-like SVs; and in the third stage, starting on day 10, slow-growing, specialist taxa including Candidatus Arthrobacter and Romboutsia were detected. The patterns of displacement and the previously reported ecological characteristics of many of the dominant taxa observed suggest that resource competition plays an important role in regulating successional dynamics in the developing chicken gut. We propose that the boundaries between successional stages (3-4 and 14-21 days after hatching) may be optimal times for microbiome interventions