Bacillus amyloliquefaciens probiotics mix supplementation in a broiler leaky gut model

The supplementation of antimicrobial growth promoters (AGPs) has been banned in many countries because of the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens in poultry products and the environment. Probiotics have been broadly studied and demonstrated as a promising AGP substitute. Our study is centred on the effects of a multi-strain Bacillus-based probiotic product on broiler production performance and gut microbial profile in a dexamethasone-induced leaky gut challenge. Two hundred and fifty-six broiler chicks were hatched and randomly assigned into four groups (wheat-soybean meal basal diet (BD) = non-supplemented control (C), BD supplemented with dexamethasone in week 4 (CD), BD containing a probiotic from day one (P), and BD containing a probiotic from day one and supplemented with dexamethasone during challenge week 4 (PD)). The production performance and caecal, gizzard, jejunal lumen and jejunal mucosa swab microbiota were studied by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The Bacillus probiotic product significantly improved production performance and altered caecal gut microbiota (p ≤ 0.05), but no significant impact on microbiota was observed in other gut sections

Enhancing Growth Performance, Organ Development, Meat Quality, and Bone Mineralisation of Broiler Chickens through Multi-Enzyme Super-Dosing in Reduced Energy Diets

This study identified the optimal multi-enzyme dose rate at three energy levels based on the production performance of broiler chickens. A 42-day grow out trial was conducted using 576 day-old mixed-sex ROSS308 broiler chickens in a 3 × 4 factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design. Diets consisting of three metabolizable energy (ME) levels: standard energy (STD), 150 kcal/kg energy reduction (STD-150), and 200 kcal/kg energy reduction (STD-200), were cross factored with four multi-enzyme inclusion levels (0, 350, 700, and 1000 g/ton). The average daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio increased linearly (p < 0.001) as the dietary ME was reduced, and the multi-enzyme addition improved the feed conversion ratio (p < 0.05) and mitigated the negative effect of the reduced energy diets (RED) on feed intake and feed conversion ratios. Carcass composition, organ weights, and meat quality were not affected by the experimental diets. The RED decreased abdominal fat weight (p < 0.05). Total ash, calcium, and phosphorous contents of the tibia bone were improved (p < 0.04) when the RED were supplemented with the multi-enzyme. Super-dosing multi-enzymes in RED mitigates the negative effect of ME reduction on growth performance while maintaining organ development and meat quality and improving bone mineral content

Correction: Tran et al. Antimicrobial Properties of <i>Bacillus</i> Probiotics as Animal Growth Promoters. <i>Antibiotics</i> 2023, <i>12</i>, 407

In the original publication [...

Antimicrobial Properties of <i>Bacillus</i> Probiotics as Animal Growth Promoters

Antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) suppress the growth of infectious pathogens. These pathogens negatively impact agricultural production worldwide and often cause health problems if left untreated. Here, we evaluate six Bacillus strains (BPR-11, BPR-12, BPR-13, BPR-14, BPR-16 and BPR-17), which are known for their ability to survive harsh environmental conditions, as AGP replacements in animal feed. Four of these Bacillus strains (BPR-11, BPR-14, BPR-16 and BPR-17) showed antimicrobial activity against the pathogenic strains Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus at 25 μg/mL, with BPR-16 and BPR-17 also able to inhibit Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella enterica at 100 μg/mL. Further chemical investigation of BPR-17 led to the identification of eight metabolites, namely C16, C15, C14 and C13 surfactin C (1–4), maculosin (5), maculosine 2 (6), genistein (7) and daidzein (8). Purified compounds (1–4) were able to inhibit all the tested pathogens with MIC values ranging from 6.25 to 50 μg/mL. Maculosin (5) and maculosine 2 (6) inhibited C. perfringens, E. coli and S. aureus with an MIC of 25 μg/mL while genistein (7) and daidzein (8) showed no activity. An animal trial involving feeding BPR-11, BPR-16 and BPR-17 to a laboratory poultry model led to an increase in animal growth, and a decrease in feed conversion ratio and mortality. The presence of surfactin C analogues (3–4) in the gut following feeding with probiotics was confirmed using an LC–MS analysis. The investigation of these Bacillus probiotics, their metabolites, their impacts on animal performance indicators and their presence in the gastrointestinal system illustrates that these probiotics are effective alternatives to AGPs

Controlled Intestinal Microbiota Colonisation in Broilers under the Industrial Production System

The concept of designer microbiota in chicken is focused on early exposure of the hatchlings to pathogen-free microbiota inoculum, limiting the early access to harmful and pathogenic microorganisms, thus promoting colonisation of the gut with beneficial and natural poultry microbiota. In this study, we controlled colonisation of the intestine in broiler chickens in a large-scale industrial setting via at-hatch administration of a commercial product containing a highly diverse microbiota originating from the chicken caecum. The treatment significantly transformed the microbiota membership in the crop, proventriculus, jejunum and caecum and significantly altered the taxa abundance in the jejunum, jejunum mucosa, and caecum estimated using PERMANOVA and unweighted and weighted UniFrac distances, respectively. The treatment also improved the growth rate in chickens with no significant alteration in feed conversion ratio. A comparison of inoculum product microbiota structure revealed that the inoculum had the highest Shannon diversity index compared to all investigated gut sections, and the number of Observed Species second only to the caecal community. PCoA plots using weighted or unweighted UniFrac placed the inoculum samples together with the samples from the caecal origin

Ileum transcriptional response to prolonged supplementation with phytogenic product containing menthol, carvacrol and carvone

Pathogen control is a critical issue in the layer industry. Plant-based natural products are firmly replacing the undesirable use of antibiotics in animal production. The poultry industry embraced the opportunity to distance itself from the negative public perception of antibiotic use. In this study, we investigated the effects of a phytogenic product comprising of menthol, carvacrol and carvone on ileum gene expression profile in layers after 16 weeks of continual supplementation. Phytogen supplementation increased endocytosis and autophagy while showing significant predicted cardiovascular protective effects. Statistical comparison with over 100,000 manually curated and comparably reanalysed public datasets suggests that the phytogen effects are highly significantly comparable with transcriptomic effects of clinical antibiotics doxycycline and geldanamycin, and that phytogen can reverse transcriptomic effects of a range of viral diseases and malaria. Our data confirmed the hypothesis that similarly to the original essential oil type antimicrobial constituents of phytogenic products, there may be a range of benefits unrelated to their critical antimicrobial action, contributing to improved bird welfare