Acute phase response of piglets diets containing non-starch polysaccharide hydrolysis products and egg yolk antibodies following an oral challenge with Escherichia coli (K88)

E Kiarie, BA Slominski, DO Krause, and CM Nyachoti. 2009. Canadian Journal of Animal Science,89: 353-360.

15-Feb-2010 (16 years 3 months 22 days ago)
Animals respond to infection and inflammation by implementing a series of physiological reactions known as acute phase responses (APR). Tracking APR provides useful measures of clinical or sub-clinical manifestations in pigs challenged with enteric pathogens. Therefore, the present study evaluated APR in pigs fed non-starch polysaccharides hydrolysis products (HP) and egg yolk antibodies (EYA) upon oral challenge with ETEC. Acute phase responses were measured at time points within 48 h post-challenge.

The HP were products of incubating feedstuffs with a blend of carbohydrase enzymes. Forty, 21-d-old pigs (two pigs/pen) were assigned to four diets to give five pens per diet. The diets were: a control fed without or with 5 g/kg of HP and EYA either singly or in combination forming a 2X2 factorial arrangement. Following a 9-d adaptation period, pigs were bled and given an oral dose of ETEC. Pigs were then bled and feed intake recorded within 48 h post-challenge.

Pigs fed HP ate more (P<0.05) than pigs not fed HP during the ETEC challenge. Interaction between additives and time was observed for packed cell volume (PCV, P<0.0002), in which case pigs fed the control diet showed lower PCV at 6 h post-challenge than pigs fed additives. At 48 h post-challenge, main effects (P<0.10) were such that pigs fed HP-diets had lower serum haptoglobin and pigs fed EYA-diets had higher interleukin-6 compared with pigs fed non-HP and non-EYA diets, respectively.

It is concluded that, non-starch polysaccharides hydrolysis products and egg yolk antibodies reduced the severity of ETEC-enteritis in piglets with some evidence of synergistic effects.