• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.723-731
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• 2008

Immunomodulatory feed additives might offer alternatives to antimicrobial growth promoters in pig production. This experiment was designed to determine the effects of dietary galacto-mannan-oligosaccharide (GMOS) and chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) supplementation on the immune response in early-weaned piglets. Forty 15-day-old piglets (Duroc$\times$Landrace$\times$Yorkshire) with an average live body weight of $5.6{\pm}0.51kg$ were weaned and randomly assigned to 4 treatment groups that were fed maize-soybean meal diets containing either basal, 110 mg/kg of lincomycin, 250 mg/kg of COS or 0.2% GMOS, respectively, over a 2-week period. Another six piglets of the same age were sacrificed on the same day at the beginning of the study for sampling, in order to obtain baseline values. Interleukin (IL)-1${\beta}$gene expression in peripheral blood monocytes, jejunal mucosa and lymph nodes, as well as serum levels of IL-1${\beta}$ IL-2 and IL-6, IgA, IgG, and IgM, were evaluated for 5 pigs from each group at 15 and 28 days of age. The results indicate that weaning stress resulted in decreases in serum antibody and cytokine levels. Dietary supplementation with GMOS or COS enhanced (p<0.05) IL-1${\beta}$gene expression in jejunal mucosa and lymph nodes, as well as serum levels of IL-1${\beta}$ IL-2, IL-6, IgA, IgG and IgM compared to supplementation with lincomycin. These findings suggest that GMOS or COS may enhance the cell-mediated immune response in early-weaned piglets by modulating the production of cytokines and antibodies, which shows that GMOS or COS have different effects than the antibiotic on animal growth and health.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.998-1003
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• 2016

Although exogenous protease enzymes have been used in poultry diets quite extensively, this has not been the case for pig diets. In general, due to their better gut fermentative capacity and longer transit time, pigs have greater capacity to digest dietary proteins than poultry. However, in early-weaned piglets, the stress brought about by weaning adversely affects the digestion of dietary proteins. Therefore, a study was conducted to determine the effects of a commercial protease enzyme in weanling pigs. Indices of growth, nutrient digestibility, blood profiles, fecal microflora, fecal gas emission and fecal scores were measured during the study. A total of 50 weanling pigs ($6.42{\pm}0.12kg$) at 28 d of age were randomly assigned to receive 1 of 2 dietary treatments: i) control diet (corn-soy based) with no supplemental protease (CON), and ii) control diet+200 g/ton protease (PROT) for 42 d. A completely randomized design consisting of 2 treatments, 5 replicates, and 5 pigs in each replicate was used. Growth performance in terms of body weight ($27.04{\pm}0.38kg$ vs $25.75{\pm}0.39kg$; p<0.05) and average daily gain ($491{\pm}7.40g$ vs $460{\pm}7.46g$; p<0.05) in PROT fed pigs were increased significantly, but gain per feed ($0.700{\pm}0.01$ vs $0.678{\pm}0.01$; p>0.05) was similar between treatments at d 42. Relative to CON pigs, PROT fed pigs had increased (p<0.05) apparent total tract digestibility ($84.66%{\pm}0.65%$ vs $81.21%{\pm}1.13%$ dry matter and $84.02%{\pm}0.52%$ vs $80.47%{\pm}1.22%$ nitrogen) and decreased (p<0.05) $NH_3$ emission ($2.0{\pm}0.16ppm$ vs $1.2{\pm}0.12ppm$) in the feces at d 42. Except for a decreased (p<0.05) in blood creatinine level, no differences were observed in red blood cell, white blood cell, lymphocyte, urea nitrogen, and IgG concentrations between treatments. Fecal score and fecal microflora (Lactobacillus and E. coli) were also similar between CON and PROT groups. Overall, the supplementation of protease enzyme in weanling pigs resulted in improved growth rate and nutrient digestibility. Exogenous protease enzyme reduced fecal $NH_3$ emission, thus, potentially serving as a tool in lowering noxious gas contribution of livestock production in the environment.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.159-168
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• 1999

Swine whipworm(Trichuris suis) is cosmopolitan nematode which can cause serious pathology in immature stage(larva2~larva5) of infected pigs, such as anorexia, diarrhea, anemia, and death in heavy infections. In this larval stages, it is very difficult to diagnose the infection of whipworm and to differentiate from other common swine gastrointestinal disorders such as 21 day scours which are associated with TGE virus, rota virus, coccidium, and the stress of weaning. In this experiment, the isolated antigens of Trichuris spp. were carried out to examine the structure and specificity of antigens and to select the reasonable antigens which would be used in serological diagnosis by electrophoresis, Western blotting, ELISA. The results of this experiment were as follows; 1. The common fractions of each Trichuris suis antigen were identified 28,32,45, 80kDa by SDS-PAGE with silver stain and four major fractions could be detected in positive swine sera by Western blot analysis. 2. The OD(optical density) values of somatic and excretory-secretory antigens which were reacted against positive(negative) sera from pigs infected with Trichuris suis by ELISA reader were; 1) OD values($mean{\pm}SD$) of adult somatic antigen against positive(negative) sera were $0.30{\pm}0.12(0.09{\pm}0.006)$ and third-stage larva of somatic antigen were $0.28{\pm}0.038(0.10{\pm}0.005)$. And OD values of excretory-secretory antigens of adult and third-stage larva were $0.24{\pm}0.031(0.11{\pm}0.005)$ and $0.08{\pm}0.013(0.10{\pm}0.003)$, respectively. 2) OD values of adult somatic, larval somatic antigen and adult excretory-secretory antigen response to positive sera were significantly (p<0.01) associated with negative swine sera. And the Cut-off OD values(minimum positive value) were determined to be mean negative value plus 3 SD that would minimized the risk of false positives. 3. The OD values of somatic antigens of T suis and T vulpis against swine positive(negative) sera were $0.30{\pm}0.120(0.09{\pm}0.006)$ and $0.25{\pm}0.141(0.09{\pm}0.003)$. These data mean that the somatic antigens of T suis and T vulpis were able to diagnose T vulpis infection in dogs as well as T suis infection in pigs. These results suggest that somatic antigen of third-stage larva and excretory-secretory antigen of adult T suis could be used the diagnostic antigen by serological test(ELISA) in immature Trichuris spp. infection.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 2001

This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of n-6(corn oil) & n-3(fish oil) fatty acids on infarction size and the cerebral activities of antioxidant enzyme in rat focal brain ischemia model. Weaning Sprague-Dawley rats were fed with either corn oil supplemented diet(COD, 14% corn oil) or fish oil supplemented diet(FOD, 14% menhaden oil) for 6 weeks. The right middle cerebral artery was occluded for 2 hours with a silicon rubber coated nylon surgical thread. After 24 hours of recirculation, the rats were sacrificed and brain sections were photographed using CCD camera after staining with 2, 3, 5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride for 60 minutes in room temperature. The infarcted area was measured and the volume of infarction was calculated. Catalase(CAT), superoxide dismutase(SOD) activities, and fatty acid composition in the brain were also measured. The total and corrected infarction volumes were not significantly different between FOD and COD group. The docosagexaenoic acid(DHA) and DHA content/arachidonic acid(AA) ratio of the cerebral cortex, an index of defense against lipid oxidation, were significantly increased in FOD group compared to those of COD group(p<0.05). In the left cortex(non-infarction side) as well as the right cortex(infarction side) of FOD group, CAT and Cu/Zn SOD activities were higher than those of the COD group(p<0.05). However, CAT and Cu/Zn SOD activities were not significantly different between the left cortex(non-infarction side) and the right cortex(infarction side) of both FOD and COD group. GPx activities were also not significantly different between two groups. Our results demonstrate that the brain infarction size in FOD and COD were not significantly different. However, cerebral lipid composition and antioxidant enzyme activities in FOD and COD group were different. Fish oil, a source of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid(PUFA) and corn oil, that of n-6(PUFA) may have a protective effect against oxidative stress induced via different mechanisms.