A combination of puerarin and poria cococs polysaccharide alleviates the excessive autophagy-caused jejunal injury by increasing serine dehydratase like (SDSL) levels in PEDV-infected piglets

Abstract

This study aims to elucidate the mechanism underlying the reduced jejunal injury in PEDV-challenged piglets after oral administration of puerarin and poria cocos polysaccharides combination (PR + PCP, PP). Results showed that the PEDV challenge caused damage to the small intestine by injuring the villi and inducing redox imbalance which exacerbated the diarrhea of piglets, while PP administration trended to reduce the PEDV infection-caused diarrhea in piglets by alleviating the jejunal injury and restoring the redox balance. Further proteomics and qPCR results showed that PP could significantly reduce the decline of the protein and mRNA levels of gene SDSL inhibiting cellular autophagy in PEDV-infected jejunum of piglets. The immunofluorescence results showed that the autophagy levels of the jejunum expressing low SDSL caused by PEDV infection in the PEDV group were significantly higher than those of the jejunum expressing higher levels of SDSL caused by PP administration in the PP + PEDV group. These results showed that PEDV infection caused jejunal excessive autophagy in piglets by reducing the expression level of SDSL. However, the restoration of the expression level of SDSL significantly reduced the PEDV infection-caused jejunal excessive autophagy in piglets, leading to a decrease in jejunal injury. Therefore, PP administration can alleviate the excessive autophagy-caused jejunal injury by increasing SDSL levels in PEDV-infected piglets. This result suggests that PP can be used as a potential feed additive to prevent PEDV infection.

Keywords

• Puerarin and poria cococs polysaccharide
• Piglet
• PEDV
• Jejunum
• Serine dehydratase like
• Excessive autophagy