Intestinal Performance upon Broiler Chickens fed with or without Epidermal Growth Factor

Abstract

Antibiotic abuse causes increasing occurance of antibiotic-resistance drug (ARD) species, further jeopardizes food safety. However, specific antibiotics, such as chlortetracycline, were traditionally used as growth promoting supplement. This dilemma remains to be unsolved until alternatives for antibiotics. We explore the potential of chEGF as an antibiotic substitute in this research. Here, we obtained and optimized a chEGF sequence, which was cloned to express and purify, and then fed broilers. The detection of alkaline protease, lipases and α-amylase by sandwich ELISA indirectly showed that EGF ameliorate digestive function of broilers with the regulation of enzyme activity in the normal diet, EGF supplement, and chlortetracycline supplement groups. Through histo-morphological methods, intestinal epithelial growth and induced EGFR expression, especially in duodenum, shows significant difference with comparison of each groups. We finally evaluate survival rate, ratio of feeding-weight, and european efficient index with pilot-scale chEGF in clinical study. The results shows chEGF can significantly increase economic efficiency index of broiler feeding. In conclusion, chEGF could be one kind of antibiotic alternatives in the broiler feeding industry by regulating the upper digestive system function and promoting nutrient uptake.