Effects of three kinds of protease on growth performance, apparent digestibility of nutrients and caecal microbial counts in weanling pigs

Abstract

This experiment investigated the effects of three single kinds of protease on performance, serum parameters, apparent digestibility of nutrients and caecal microorganisms in weanling pigs. One hundred and ninety-two White × Landrace × Duroc hybrid pigs (7.51 ± 0.81 kg) were allotted to 1 of 4 treatments for 28 days. No protease was added to the control diet and the three experimental diets were supplemented with the same proportion of 10 IU/kg of alkaline, acidic and neutral protease, respectively. The supplementation of alkaline protease increased average daily gain and reduced serum concentrations of cholesterol and triglyceride compared with the control group (P < 0.05). The three single kinds of protease supplementation decreased the levels of serum urea nitrogen and increased the serum concentration of aspartate aminotransferase (P < 0.05). The apparent digestibility of crude protein was increased by the dietary supplementation of alkaline or acidic protease compared with that of pigs in the control group (P < 0.05). Results indicate that the alkaline protease supplementation improved the performance and apparent digestibility of crude protein in weanling pigs.

The Effects of Protease Supplementation and Faba Bean Extrusion on Growth, Gastrointestinal Tract Physiology and Selected Blood Indices of Weaned Pigs

“…The protease supplementation of the pigs’ diet resulted in a comparable performance as in the group fed with the diet without the enzyme, but FCR was higher. Similarly, Hanczakowska and Świątkiewicz et al [ 21 ] and Ma et al [ 49 ] found that although protease supplementation could improve the average daily weight gain, it did not have positive influence on the FI and FCR when the diet contained processed or unprocessed legume seeds. On the contrary, Zuo et al [ 14 ] found that higher dietary protease supplementation increased the growth performance of pigs.…”

“…Zuo et al [ 14 ] found that protease supplementation at a dose of 200 and 300 mg/kg, but not at 100 mg per kg of the diet, improved the digestibility of crude protein but did not improve the digestibility of dry matter. Ma et al [ 49 ] found increased apparent digestibility coefficients of crude protein in the pigs which received dietary supplementation with ‘alkaline’ or ‘acidic’ protease but not ‘neutral’ ones. Zuo et al [ 14 ] observed that the supplementation of a diet containing unprocessed seeds with an enzyme additive improved the morphometric parameters of the ileum and the activity of pepsin, amylase, and trypsin.…”

“…Tactacan et al [ 50 ] conducted an experiment and found that protease supplementation had no effect on the BUN level. Ma et al [ 49 ] observed changes in blood serum parameters when different protease types were used in the diets.…”

Alkaline protease isolate supplemented to reduced crude protein diets improves apparent digestibility but does not support performance in grower-finisher pigs

“…Alkaline exogenous proteases have an optimum activity when pH is close to the alkaline range (Cowieson and Ross, 2016;Ma et al, 2020). Thus, they have greater hydrolysis activity in the small intestine (Cowieson and Ross, 2016).…”

Effects of alkaline protease on the production performance, egg quality, and cecal microbiota of hens during late laying period

“…During the late laying period, the secretion ability of endogenous enzymes is weakened and resulted of the decrease in the digestibility of laying hens and then leading to the reduction of egg production (Usman et al, 2014). In the previous studies, the dietary supplementation of protease could enhance the endogenous enzymes hydrolysis ability and improve broiler performance (Barekatain et al, 2013;Freitas et al, 2011) and also increase the amino acid digestibility of weaned and growing pigs fed with corn-soy diets (Ma et al, 2020;Pan et al, 2016;Yu et al, 2016). However, only a few reports focused on AKP supplementation for laying hens, particularly its effect on the intestinal microbiota in late laying period.…”