The Implications of Nutritional Strategies that Modify Dietary Energy and Lysine for Growth Performance in Two Different Swine Production Systems

This work aimed to determine the impacts of lowering dietary net energy (NE) density in two swine production systems that produce pigs with different carcass traits. To ensure that dietary lysine was not limiting growth, two studies were conducted in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with NE and standardized ileal digestible lysine (SID Lys) as experimental factors. A total of 1248 pigs were used in each study, Pietrain (Exp. 1, males non-castrated) or Duroc (Exp. 2, males castrated) sired. Reducing NE resulted in a greater feed intake; however, this was not sufficient to reach the same NE intake. While in Exp. 1 a 3.2% lower NE intake did not impair average daily gain (ADG; p = 0.220), in Exp. 2 a 4.7% lower NE intake reduced ADG by 1.4% (p = 0.027). Furthermore, this effect on ADG entailed a reduced ham fat thickness (p = 0.004) of the first marketed pigs. Increasing SID Lys only had a positive effect in Exp. 1, but no significant interaction between NE and SID Lys was reported (p ≥ 0.100). Therefore, dietary NE can be reduced without impairing growth performance when pigs can increase feed intake sufficiently, and thus, limit energy deficiencies

Potential risk factors related to pig body weight variability from birth to slaughter in commercial conditions

The aim of this observational study is to identify risk factors associated with body weight (BW) variability in three data sets (DS) in commercial conditions. A total of 1,009 (DS1), 460 (DS2), and 1304 (DS3) male and female crossbreed pigs (Pietrain × [Landrace × Large White]), respectively, were included in each trial. Pigs were periodically weighed until slaughter. Then, variables such as length of gestation, length of lactation, parity, litter size, sex, birth BW, and ADG were considered. Pigs remaining on the farm after two loads to the slaughterhouse were defined as last group of animals sent to slaughterhouse (LGS). Descriptive statistics of variability were calculated, and a risk analysis approach was used to look for the factors related to LGS. A multiple logistic regression was performed to identify all variables that were significant (P < 0.05). The risk ratio (RR), odds ratio (OR), and population attributable risk (PAR) were calculated for all of the significant variables after transforming all of them into binary factors using the 25th percentile as the cut-off point. Results showed that the major part of the variability (as CV) comes from birth (20% to 25%) and increased only a little during lactation and 14-d post weaning. From this point onwards, CV tended to decrease, as pigs got closer to the marketing weight (down 11.5% to 12.7%). Regarding the indicators selected, RR, OR, and PAR presented similar trends in the three DS studied. Therefore, for the variables finally included, these indicators had their minimum values at the start of the cycle and then gradually increased at the end. Those results, based on an epidemiological approach, suggest that the closer to the end of the cycle the greater the probability for a light piglet of being/becoming LGS. It might be explained by the shorter available time to efficiently implement preventive measures aimed to improve the performance of delayed pigs and, thus, reducing variability.Those results, based on an epidemiological approach, make sense as the probability for a light piglet to be a LGS increases the closer to the end of the cycle, due to the short time to implement preventive measures and increase the performance of delayed pigs and reduce variability. The differential PAR associated with both, the nursery and the growing period, was 1.7% and 1.5% for DS1, 5.1% and 3.1% for DS2, and 3.7% and 2.8% for DS3. For the lactation period, the results were 4.3% for DS2 and 4.5% for DS3. Results suggest that the most critical periods, in relation to retardation of growth in swine, are lactation and nursery. Implementing measures that maintain risk factors under or above thresholds, especially in the initial phases of growth, will reduce the percentage of LGS pigs and positively affect the overall homogeneity of the batch

Effect of maternal feed intake during mid-gestation on pig performance and meat quality at slaughter

A study was conducted to evaluate, under commercial conditions, the effect of a high feed intake during mid-gestation on postnatal growth performance and meat quality of the progeny. Sows from 1 to 7 parities were divided into two treatments, control (C) and experimental (E). C sows received 3.0 kg/day (12 MJ of ME/kg) througout all gestation and E sows (E) received +50% and +75% extra feed from 45 to 85 days of gestation for first-parity and multiparous sows, respectively. This treatment (T) was applied thoughout two reproductive cycles (2 replicates; n=103 sows in replicate 1 and n=96 in replicate 2). The offspring (barrows) were divided in 5 weight groups (WG) and reared conventionally throughout nursery (n=958) and growing-finishing (n=636) periods. During the nursery period, E pigs exhibited higher growth rates (ADG) than C group (333 g/d vs 316 g/d, p<0.05) in replicate 1 and a higher feed efficiency (G:F) than C group (0.48 vs 0.47, p<0.05) in replicate 2. However, this differences disappeared in the growing-finishing period. The pigs of the lightest weight groups seemed to be the most benefited by the additional maternal feed allowance. At slaughter, E pigs in replicate 1 showed a higher carcass and ham weight. These pigs also showed a higher pH at 24 hours postmortem in the semimembranosus muscle and lower lightness values in the longissimus muscle than C pigs, and this fact was consistent in both replicates. Overall, increasing feed allowance from 45 to 85 days of gestation had slight effects on growth performance and lead to differences on meat quality traits at market weight

Effects of extra feeding in mid-pregnancy for three successive parities on lean sows' productive performance and longevity

The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term effects of increasing feeding allowance during mid-pregnancy in sows. A total of 103 PIC pregnant sows (mixed parity) were allocated to two treatments: control (C, n49) were fed 2.5 3.0 kg d 1 (12.1 MJ ME kg 1) and extra-fed (E,n 54) received 2.0 kg d 1 of the same feed from day 4 5to 8 5of gestation over three consecutive cycles. Body weight, backfat thickness (BF) and loin depth were measured on days 4 5and 8 5of gestation, farrowing and weaning. Litter and sows performance were recorded during lactation and post-weaning. Overall culling rates were 61 and 67% for C and E groups, respectively. After three cycles, E sows showed a positive BF balance in contrast to C sows (E 1.46 mm and C 1.81 mm, PB 0.05). In cycle 3, E sows presented greater piglet birth weights than C sows, being mainly evident in sows that were nulliparous at the onset of the experiment (PB 0.05). Extra-fed sows showed a greater incidence of mastitis-metritis-agalactia syndrome than C sows (P 0.003). Thus, increasing feeding allowance during mid-pregnancy positively affected BF balance and birth weight in nulliparous sows,but impaired the sows' ability to produce milk in the long-term

Z2Z4-additive codes

Altres ajuts: UAB PNL2006-13The Combinatoric, Coding and Security Group (CCSG) is a research group in the Department of Information and Communications Engineering (DEIC) at the Universitat Aut'onoma de Barcelona (UAB). The research group CCSG has been uninterruptedly working since 1987 in several projects and research activities on Information Theory, Communications, Coding Theory, Source Coding, Cryptography, Electronic Voting, Network Coding, etc. The members of the group have been producing mainly results on optimal coding. Specifically, the research has been focused on uniformly-packed codes; perfect codes in the Hamming space; perfect codes in distance-regular graphs; the classification of optimal codes of a given length; and codes which are close to optimal codes by some properties, for example, Reed-Muller codes, Preparata codes, Kerdock codes and Hadamard codes. Part of the research developed by CCSG deals with Z2Z4-linear codes. There are no symbolic software to work with these codes, so the members of CCSG have been developing this new package that supports the basic facilities for Z2Z4-additive codes. Specifically, this Magma package generalizes most of the known functions for codes over the ring Z4, which are subgroups of Zn4, to Z2Z4-additive codes, which are subgroups of Zγ2 × Zδ4, maintaining all the functionality for codes over Z4 and adding new functions which, not only generalize the previous ones, but introduce new variants when it is needed. A beta version of this new package for Z2Z4-additive codes and this manual with the description of all functions can be downloaded from the web page http://ccsg.uab.cat. For any comment or further information about this package, you can send an e-mail to [email protected]. The authors would like to thank Lorena Ronquillo, Jaume Pernas, Roger Ten-Valls, and Cristina Diéguez for their contributions developing some parts of this Magma package

Z2Z4-additive codes

Altres ajuts: UAB PNL2006-13The Combinatoric, Coding and Security Group (CCSG) is a research group in the Department of Information and Communications Engineering (DEIC) at the Universitat Aut'onoma de Barcelona (UAB). The research group CCSG has been uninterruptedly working since 1987 in several projects and research activities on Information Theory, Communications, Coding Theory, Source Coding, Cryptography, Electronic Voting, Network Coding, etc. The members of the group have been producing mainly results on optimal coding. Specifically, the research has been focused on uniformly-packed codes; perfect codes in the Hamming space; perfect codes in distance-regular graphs; the classification of optimal codes of a given length; and codes which are close to optimal codes by some properties, for example, Reed-Muller codes, Preparata codes, Kerdock codes and Hadamard codes. Part of the research developed by CCSG deals with Z2Z4-linear codes. There are no symbolic software to work with these codes, so the members of CCSG have been developing this new package that supports the basic facilities for Z2Z4-additive codes. Specifically, this Magma package generalizes most of the known functions for codes over the ring Z4, which are subgroups of Zn4, to Z2Z4-additive codes, which are subgroups of Zγ2 × Zδ4, maintaining all the functionality for codes over Z4 and adding new functions which, not only generalize the previous ones, but introduce new variants when it is needed. A beta version of this new package for Z2Z4-additive codes and this manual with the description of all functions can be downloaded from the web page http://ccsg.uab.cat. For any comment or further information about this package, you can send an e-mail to [email protected]. The authors would like to thank Lorena Ronquillo, Jaume Pernas, Roger Ten-Valls, and Cristina Diéguez for their contributions developing some parts of this Magma package

Therapeutic targeting of tumor growth and angiogenesis with a novel anti-S100A4 monoclonal antibody

S100A4, a member of the S100 calcium-binding protein family secreted by tumor and stromal cells, supports tumorigenesis by stimulating angiogenesis. We demonstrated that S100A4 synergizes with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), via the RAGE receptor, in promoting endothelial cell migration by increasing KDR expression and MMP-9 activity. In vivo overexpression of S100A4 led to a significant increase in tumor growth and vascularization in a human melanoma xenograft M21 model. Conversely, when silencing S100A4 by shRNA technology, a dramatic decrease in tumor development of the pancreatic MiaPACA-2 cell line was observed. Based on these results we developed 5C3, a neutralizing monoclonal antibody against S100A4. This antibody abolished endothelial cell migration, tumor growth and angiogenesis in immunodeficient mouse xenograft models of MiaPACA-2 and M21-S100A4 cells. It is concluded that extracellular S100A4 inhibition is an attractive approach for the treatment of human cancer