Effect of mannan oligosaccharide supplementation on blood and intestinal immune cells, bacteria numbers and performance in weaned pigs

Abstract

In animal production, alternative strategies to the use of antibiotic growth promoters have stimulated research of dietary supplements to increase resistance, reduce post-weaning gut disorders and growth checks in pigs. This study was performed to determine the influence of dietary mannan oligosaccharide as a potential alternative to antibiotic growth promoters in weaned pigs on: (1) proliferation of circulating and intestinal immune cell subsets, (2) incidence and severity of diarrhoea, and (3) performance during 35 days of trial. Forty-six pigs from a commercial farm were divided into two groups comprising 23 pigs each and treated at 4 weeks of age as follows: controls received standard weaner diet, whereas diet for principals was supplemented with 0.2% of mannan oligosaccharide. The pigs were monitored/sampled on daily, weekly or monthly basis for feed efficiency, growth rate, diarrhoea severity scores, blood samples, rectal swabs and intesinal samples for bacterial isolation/counts and immunohistology/ histomorphometry analyses. The principals were heavier (P < 0.05) at 28 days and grew faster between days 7 and 28 compared to controls. Total diarrhoea score recorded in these pigs was decreased by 20.37%. Total bacterial load in jejunum was decreased in these pigs (23 × 10 7 vs. 19 × 10 8 colony forming units/ml) at day 35. Between days 28 and 35 or days 21 and 28, the principals increased in proportions of circulating CD45 + , CD4 + , CD21 + , CD8 + cells (P < 0.01), respectively. These pigs had increased (P < 0.05) the number of CD45RA + cells in interfollicular and follicular areas of ileal Payer's patches at day 35. We concluded that dietary modulation with mannan oligosaccharide resulted in stimulation of immune responses and reduced number of gut microbiota, but not necessarily promoting the growth of pigs.

Dietary Mannan Oligosaccharides Modulate Gut Inflammatory Response and Improve Duodenal Villi Height in Post-Weaning Piglets Improving Feed Efficiency

“…Beyond their ability to modulate gut microbiota, MOS supplementation evidenced additional beneficial properties such as decreased incidence of diarrhoea [21,22] and higher growth performance [23,24]. Usually, the most significant results on growth when supplementing MOS in swine are obtained during the first and second week just after weaning [25].…”

“…A large body of literature has also evidenced the efficacy of dietary MOS to enhance pigs' immunity by the increase in the immunoglobulin serum concentrations [28], the stimulation of the mucosal immunity [21], and the modulation of the inflammatory response [29]. Duan et al [29] reported decreased serum concentration of proinflammatory cytokine and increased circulating levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-10 in young piglets following the administration of 0.8 mg/kg BW of MOS.…”

Effects of adding mannan oligosaccharides on digestibility and metabolism of nutrients, ruminal fermentation parameters, immunity, and antioxidant capacity of sheep1

“…Functional oligosaccharides are widely used in animal feed because of the benefits to animal growth and immunity (Duan et al, 2016). Mannanoligosaccharide (MOS) has been identified as a typical functional oligosaccharide (Patel and Goyal, 2011) and has been the subject of several studies on animals including pigs (Giannenas et al, 2016;Valpotic et al, 2016), laying hens (Bozkurt et al, 2016;Ghasemian and Jahanian, 2016), broiler chickens (Attia et al, 2014), rabbits (Abdel-Hamid and Farahat, 2016), and aquaculture (Akter et al, 2016;Torrecillas et al, 2016). Most previous studies concentrated on monogastric animals, because it is believed that oligosaccharides are degraded by ruminal microbes and therefore bring no additional benefit to ruminant diets.…”

Experimental study on the effect of zeolite (clinoptilolite) on the growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and faecal microbiota of finishing pigs

“…Antibiotic growth promoters have been banned by the European Union in food animal production since 2006 (Valpotić et al 2016). Therefore, looking for a cost-effective method becomes a very rewarding issue, especially natural materials capable of maintaining animal health and improving growth performance is widely accepted.…”