“…Body weight of pigs and feed consumption by pigs were recorded weekly and used to obtain average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), and gain to feed ratio (G/F). On d 35, 10 mL blood samples from the external jugular vein were collected with 0.8 × 32 mm needles (Eclipse, Becton Dickinson Vacutainer Systems, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) and serum blood collection tubes (Becton Dickinson Vacutainer Systems, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) using a vacutainer tube holder, following procedures routinely employed by our research group [ 20 , 86 , 87 ]. Serum samples were stored at −80 °C in a freezer (812660-760, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) in 1.5 mL tubes (Fisherbrand, Fisher Scientific, Hampton, NH, USA) after centrifugation at 1509× g at 4 °C for 15 min (5811F, Eppendorf, Hamburg, HH, Germany).…”