Feeding Jerusalem artichoke reduced skatole level and changed intestinal microbiota in the gut of entire male pigs

Abstract

Different levels of dried Jerusalem artichoke were fed to entire male pigs 1 week before slaughter. The objective was to investigate the effect on skatole level in the hindgut and in adipose tissue, as well as the effect on microflora and short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) in the hindgut. Five experimental groups (n 5 11) were given different dietary treatments 7 days before slaughtering: negative control (basal diet), positive control (basal diet 1 9% chicory-inulin), basal diet 1 4.1% Jerusalem artichoke, basal diet 1 8.1% Jerusalem artichoke and basal diet 1 12.2% Jerusalem artichoke. Samples from colon, rectum, faeces and adipose tissue were collected. Effect of dietary treatment on skatole, indole and androstenone levels in adipose tissue and on skatole, indole, pH, dry matter (DM), microbiota and SCFA in the hindgut was evaluated. Feeding increasing levels of Jerusalem artichoke to entire male pigs reduced skatole in digesta from colon and in faeces (linear, P , 0.01). There was also a tendency towards a decreased level of skatole in adipose tissue (linear, P 5 0.06). Feeding Jerusalem artichoke decreased DM content in colon and faeces and pH in colon (linear, P , 0.01). Increasing levels of Jerusalem artichoke resulted in a reduced level of Clostridium perfringens in both colon and rectum (linear, P , 0.05) and a tendency towards decreased levels of enterobacteria in colon (linear, P 5 0.05). Further, there was an increase in total amount of SCFA (linear, P , 0.05), acetic acid (linear, P , 0.05) and valerianic acid (linear, P , 0.01) in faeces. In conclusion, adding dried Jerusalem artichoke to diets for entire male pigs 1 week before slaughter resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in skatole levels in the hindgut and adipose tissue. The reduced skatole levels might be related to the decrease in C. perfringens and the increase in SCFA with subsequent reduction in pH.

Effects of dietary supplementation with Jerusalem artichoke (<i>Helianthus tuberosus</i> L.) tubers on growth performance, nutrient digestibility as well as activity and composition of large intestinal microbiota in rats

“…As it was presented in other studies (Propst et al, 2003), total SCFA content increased linearly with increasing concentrations of prebiotic, with the greatest value noted for the 0.3% FOS treatment. Addition of fermentable carbohydrates to pig diets raised SCFA production in the hindgut (Claus et al, 2003;Vhile et al, 2012). As it was previously shown, the faecal concentrations of acetate and propionate were much higher than that of butyrate in rats (Rodríguez-Cabezas et al, 2003).…”

“…In contrast, the inhibitory effect of inulin-type fructans on Clostridium spp. was reported in the earlier studies (Xu et al, 2002;Vhile et al, 2012). Strickling et al (2000), Flickinger et al (2003) and Samal et al (2012) found no influence of MOS, FOS and JA on the coliforms count, respectively.…”

“…In the present experiment, there was no effect of diet on valeric acid concentration in the hindgut. In contrast, higher level of valeric acid was observed when inulin-type fructans were added to the diet in the studies by Øverland et al (2011) and Vhile et al (2012). However, no changes in concentration of faecal SCFA were observed in human volunteers consuming snack bars supplemented with JA (Kleessen et al, 2007).…”

“…Massot-Cladera et al (2015) observed that the diet containing inulin tended to reduce acetic acid and increase propionic acid proportion with the respect to their initial values as observed in the present study. No effect of JA tuber powder addition into diet on butyric acid concentration in the hindgut was observed in a study by Vhile et al (2012). Laerke et al (2007) reported greater propionate production due to dietary supplementation of soluble fibres from potatoes in rats.…”

Helianthus tuberosus

“…Adding dried Jerusalem artichoke to diets of entire male pigs 1 week before slaughter resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in skatole levels in the hindgut and adipose tissue (Vhile et al 2012 ). The reduced skatole levels might be related to the decrease in Clostridium perfringens in the colon and rectum and enterobacteria in the colon and also to the increase in short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) with subsequent reduction in pH.…”