Feeding a low-protein maternal diet affects qinghai bamei piglet jejunal structure and microbial function response

Abstract

This experiment investigated the impacts of feeding a maternal low-CP concentration diet having iso-essential amino acids on newborn suckling piglet"s intestinal microbial composition and function. Forty randomly selected purebred Bamei sows were divided into two groups and fed a low dietary CP (12%, LP) or a normal CP (14%, CON) diet, respectively, but formulated to contain similar (iso-) essential amino acid concentrations per current recommendations. At 21 days, 12 piglets were randomly selected from each treatment and euthanized with jejunum content samples collected. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing was combined as an integrated approach for evaluating the functional impact of maternal CP concentrations on piglet intestinal microbiome. Even though piglets demonstrated similar 0 to 21 d ADG among treatments, the jejunum relative weight, villus width, crypt depth and muscular thickness were increased (P<0.05), while villus height, and villus height/crypt depth were reduced (P<0.05) for the material LP compared to the maternal fed CON diet. Maternal CP concentrations can modify the intestinal microbial composition of Bamei suckling piglets. The relative abundances of the bacterial species Escherichia-Shigella, Actinobacillus, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1, Veillonella, and Turicibacter were increased (P<0.05) in the maternal LP fed diet compared with the maternal fed CON diet microbiota metabolites. Overall, LP diet contributed to improve piglet intestinal histomorphology, microbial composition and function.

Keywords

• qinghai bamei piglet
• low-protein maternal diet
• intestinal histomorphology
• 16s rrna
• bioinformatics