Metabolizable energy requirement for maintenance estimated by regression analysis of body weight gain or metabolizable energy intake in growing pigs

Objective: Feed energy required for pigs is first prioritized to meet maintenance costs. Additional energy intake in excess of the energy requirement for maintenance is retained as protein and fat in the body, leading to weight gain. The objective of this study was to estimate the metabolizable energy requirements for maintenance (MEm) by regressing body weight (BW) gain against metabolizable energy intake (MEI) in growing pigs.Methods: Thirty-six growing pigs (26.3 +/- 1.7 kg) were allotted to 1 of 6 treatments with 6 replicates per treatment in a randomized complete block design. Treatments were 6 feeding levels which were calculated as 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, or 100% of the estimated ad libitum MEI (2,400 kJ/kg BW0.60 d). All pigs were individually housed in metabolism crates for 30 d and weighed every 5 d. Moreover, each pig from each treatment was placed in the open-circuit respiration chambers to measure heat production (HP) and energy retained as protein (REp) and fat (REf) every 5 d. Serum biochemical parameters of pigs were analyzed at the end of the experiment.Results: The average daily gain (ADG) and HP as well as the REp and REf linearly increased with increasing feed intake (p< 0.010). beta-hydroxybutyrate concentration of serum tended to increase with increasing feed intake (p = 0.080). The regression equations of MEI on ADG were MEI, kJ/kg BW0.60 d = 1.88xADG, g/d+782 (R-2 = 0.86) and MEm was estimated at 782 kJ/kg BW0.60 d. Protein retention of growing pigs would be positive while REf would be negative at this feeding level via regression equations of REp and REf on MEI.Conclusion: The MEm was estimated at 782 kJ/kg BW0.60 d in current experiment. Furthermore, growing pigs will deposit protein and oxidize fat if provided feed at the estimated maintenance level

The Effect of Inclusion Level of Soybean Oil and Palm Oil on Their Digestible and Metabolizable Energy Content Determined with the Difference and Regression Method When Fed to Growing Pigs

This experiment was conducted to determine the effects of inclusion level of soybean oil (SO) and palm oil (PO) on their digestible and metabolism energy (DE and ME) contents when fed to growing pigs by difference and regression method. Sixty-six crossbred growing barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire and weighing 38.1±2.4 kg) were randomly allotted to a 2×5 factorial arrangement involving 2 lipid sources (SO and PO), and 5 levels of lipid (2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%) as well as a basal diet composed of corn and soybean meal. The barrows were housed in individual metabolism crates to facilitate separate collection of feces and urine, and were fed the assigned test diets at 4% of initial body weight per day. A 5-d total collection of feces and urine followed a 7-d diet adaptation period. The results showed that the DE and ME contents of SO and PO determined by the difference method were not affected by inclusion level. The DE and ME determined by the regression method for SO were greater compared with the corresponding respective values for PO (DE: 37.07, ME: 36.79 MJ/kg for SO; DE: 34.11, ME: 33.84 MJ/kg for PO, respectively). These values were close to the DE and ME values determined by the difference method at the 10% inclusion level (DE: 37.31, ME: 36.83 MJ/kg for SO; DE: 34.62, ME: 33.47 MJ/kg for PO, respectively). A similar response for the apparent total tract digestibility of acid-hydrolyzed ether extract (AEE) in lipids was observed. The true total tract digestibility of AEE in SO was significantly (p<0.05) greater than that for PO (97.5% and 91.1%, respectively). In conclusion, the DE and ME contents of lipid was not affected by its inclusion level. The difference method can substitute the regression method to determine the DE and ME contents in lipids when the inclusion level is 10%

Mixed organic acids improve nutrients digestibility, volatile fatty acids composition and intestinal microbiota in growing-finishing pigs fed high-fiber diet

Objective The objective of this study was to investigate effects of mixed organic acids (MOA) on nutrient digestibility, volatile fatty acids composition and intestinal microbiota in growing-finishing pigs fed high wheat bran diet. Methods Six crossbred barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire), with an average body weight 78.8±4.21 kg, fitted with T-cannulas at the distal ileum, were allotted to a double 3×3 Latin square design with 3 periods and 3 diets. Each period consisted of a 5-d adjustment period followed by a 2-d total collection of feces and then a 2-d collection of ileal digesta. The dietary treatments included a corn-soybean-wheat bran basal diet (CTR), mixed organic acid 1 diet (MOA1; CTR+3,000 mg/kg OA1), mixed organic acid 2 diet (MOA2; CTR+2,000 mg/kg OA2). Results Pigs fed MOA (MOA1 or MOA2) showed improved (p<0.05) apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy, dry matter and organic matter, and pigs fed MOA2 had increased (p<0.05) ATTD of neutral detergent fiber compared to CTR. Dietary MOA supplementation decreased (p<0.05) pH value, and improved (p<0.01) concentrations of lactic acid and total volatile fatty acids (TVFA) in ileum compared to CTR. Pigs fed MOA showed higher (p<0.05) concentration of acetic acid, and lower (p<0.05) content of formic acid in feces compared to CTR. Pigs fed MOA1 had increased (p<0.05) concentration of TVFA and butyric acid in feces. Pigs fed MOA1 showed higher concentration of Lactobacillus and lower concentration of Escherichia in feces compared to CTR. Conclusion Dietary supplementation of MOA 1 or 2 could improve nutrients digestibility, TVFA concentration and intestinal flora in growing-finishing pigs fed high fiber diet

Locally advanced rectal cancer with dMMR/MSI-H may be excused from surgery after neoadjuvant anti-PD-1 monotherapy: a multiple-center, cohort study

ObjectiveExamine patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) with deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) or microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) who received neoadjuvant immunotherapy (nIT), and compare the outcomes of those who chose a watch-and-wait (WW) approach after achieving clinical complete response (cCR) or near-cCR with those who underwent surgery and were confirmed as pathological complete response (pCR).MethodsLARC patients with dMMR/MSI-H who received nIT were retrospectively examined. The endpoints were 2-year overall survival (OS), 2-year disease-free survival (DFS), local recurrence (LR), and distant metastasis (DM). The efficacy of programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) inhibitor, immune-related adverse events (irAEs), surgery-related adverse events (srAEs), and enterostomy were also recorded.ResultsTwenty patients who received a PD-1 inhibitor as initial nIT were examined. Eighteen patients (90%) achieved complete response (CR) after a median of 7 nIT cycles, including 11 with pCR after surgery (pCR group), and 7 chose a WW strategy after evaluation as cCR or near-cCR (WW group). Both groups had median follow-up times of 25.0 months. Neither group had a case of LR or DM, and the 2-year DFS and OS in each group was 100%. The two groups had similar incidences of irAEs (P=0.627). In the pCR group, however, 2 patients (18.2%) had permanent colostomy, 3 (27.3%) had temporary ileostomy, and 2 (18.2%) had srAEs.ConclusionNeoadjuvant PD-1 blockade had high efficacy and led to a high rate of CR in LARC patients with dMMR/MSI-H. A WW strategy appears to be a safe and reliable option for these patients who achieve cCR or near-cCR after nIT

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Toward Developing Chemical Modulators of Hsp60 as Potential Therapeutics

The 60 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp60) is classically known as a mitochondrial chaperonin protein working together with co-chaperonin 10 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp10). This chaperonin complex is essential for folding proteins newly imported into mitochondria. However, Hsp60, and/or Hsp10 have also been shown to reside in other subcellular compartments including extracellular space, cytosol, and nucleus. The proteins in these extra-mitochondrial compartments may possess a wide range of functions dependent or independent of its chaperoning activity. But the mechanistic details remain unknown. Mutations in Hsp60 gene have been shown to be associated with neurodegenerative disorders. Abnormality in expression level and/or subcellular localization have also been detected from different diseased tissues including inflammatory diseases and various cancers. Therefore, there is a strong interest in developing small molecule modulators of Hsp60. Most of the reported inhibitors were discovered through various chemoproteomics strategies. In this review, we will describe the recent progress in this area with reported inhibitors from both natural products and synthetic compounds. The former includes mizoribine, epolactaene, myrtucommulone, stephacidin B, and avrainvillamide while the latter includes o-carboranylphenoxyacetanilides and gold (III) porphyrins. The potencies of the known inhibitors range from low micromolar to millimolar concentrations. The potential applications of these inhibitors include anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory diseases, and anti-autoimmune diseases

Effects of proteinate complex zinc on growth performance, hepatic and splenic trace elements concentrations, antioxidative function and immune functions in weaned piglets

Objective To assess the effects of proteinate complex zinc (PC-Zn) on growth performance, antioxidative function, trace element concentrations and immune function in weaned piglets. Methods Three hundred newly weaned barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire), 28 days of age, were randomly allotted to 3 dietary groups of 5 replicate pens per group for 4 weeks of feeding. Experimental diets were: i) zinc deficient diet (ZnD, 24 mg/kg Zn supplementation from ZnSO4), ii) inorganic Zn diet supplemented with 120 mg/kg of Zn from Zn sulfate (ZnSO4), and iii) organic Zn diet supplemented with 120 mg/kg of Zn from PC-Zn. The body weight of pigs were recorded at the beginning, at the middle and at the end of the experiment, and the amount of feed supplied each day was recorded. Five barrows from each dietary treatment group were selected to be anesthetized and euthanized at the end of the trial to determine the Zn, Cu, Fe, and Mn concentrations, the hepatic metallothionein content, the levels of methane dicarboxylic aldehyde (MDA), Mn, and Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in the spleen, the levels of interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-10, interferon (IFN)-γ, CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T lymphocyte. Results The accumulation of Zn in the spleen, levels of SOD, GSH-Px, IL-4, IL-10, the proportions of CD3+ and CD4+ T lymphocyte, and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T lymphocyte were increased by organic Zn supplementation compared to ZnD, while the levels of MDA, IFN-γ, and proportion of CD8+ T lymphocyte were lowered. Conclusion These findings indicate that Zn can improve the antioxidant potential and immune functions of weaned piglets