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

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate how the extrusion of faba bean seeds (var. Albus) and/or the addition of protease to pigs’ diets affected the animals’ growth parameters, digestibility of nutrients, selected physiological parameters of the digestive tract, and biochemical blood parameters. A 28-day experiment was conducted on 32 pigs weighing 9 ± 0.2 kg. The animals were allocated to four treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with the main effects of extrusion (raw or extruded) and effects of protease supplementation (0 and 0.05%). Extrusion reduced the levels of neutral detergent fibre, trypsin inhibitor, phytate-P, and resistant starch but did not improve the digestibility of protein and dry matter in faba bean seeds. The pigs’ growth performance, ileal digestibility, enzyme activity, and morphometric parameters of the ileum were not significantly affected by extrusion, except for a higher feed intake between the 15th and 28th day of the experiment. The protease supplementation gave comparable results as the diet without protease, except the feed conversion ratio (in the periods of 15–28th day and 0–28th day), which was higher than in the groups without protease. The extrusion and protease increased acetate and acetoacetate contents in the cecal digesta, but propionate, butyrate, and isovalerate concentrations in the digesta of the pigs in this group were lower. Thanks to protease supplementation, protein and oil levels in the diet were reduced, which cut the cost of feed mixtures. The extrusion and protease additive combined together did not improve the pigs’ growth performance in this experiment.

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

“…This result is related to the fact that changes in blood constituents regarding diet formulation and protease supplementation may not be easily detected under less challenging pig rearing conditions (Min et al, 2019). This case is supported by previous studies (Tactacan et al, 2016;Zaworska-Zakrzewska et al, 2022), in which no changes in TP concentrations, albumin, and globulin in pigs were observed. Wang et al (2020) reported greater serum albumin and a trend to greater TP concentrations in young pigs fed diets containing greater CP concentration (3% more).…”

“…Diaz González and Silva (2008) reported that reduced albumin and urea concentrations suggest a protein deficiency. Although we observed no changes in urea concentration in pigs as previously observed by Tactacan et al (2016) and Zaworska-Zakrzewska et al (2022), urea concentration was analyzed as a sensitive and immediate indicator of protein intake. Urea concentration is also a marker of renal function (Kaneko et al, 2008;Upadhaya et al, 2016;Nguyen et al, 2019).…”

“…Previous studies have not reported changes in carcass traits (Choe et al, 2017;Min et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2020;Perez-Palencia et al, 2021) and blood parameters in pigs (Tactacan et al, 2016;Min et al, 2019;Zaworska-Zakrzewska et al, 2022). However, the optimal growth performance (Tactacan et al, 2016;Choe et al, 2017;Min et al, 2019;Ma et al, 2020) and greater digestibility of dry matter, nitrogen (Nguyen et al, 2018), and CP (Chen et al, 2017;Ma et al, 2020) were observed when pigs fed diets containing proteases.…”

“…Moreover, plant protein sources contain digestively resistant antinutritional factors or allergenic proteins (Park et al, 2020). These compounds reduce the activity of endogenous proteolytic enzymes and protein digestibility in pigs fed diets with no acid or alkaline protease supplementation (Zaworska-Zakrzewska et al, 2022).…”

The application of protease in aquaculture: Prospects for enhancing the aquafeed industry

“…Proteases, as a dietary enzyme additive, can improve protein utilization by addressing endogenous enzyme deficiencies and hydrolyzing macromolecular proteins ( Saleh et al., 2022 ). Additionally, they can enhance other nutrient absorption ( Cowieson and Roos, 2016 ; Zaworska-Zakrzewska et al., 2022 ). However, a significant challenge in the commercial application of exogenous protease additives exists; proteases are heat-sensitive additives that undergo a reduction in efficacy during feed processing, and the extrusion process is primarily responsible for the degradation of thermosensitive nutrients ( Espinosa et al., 2020 ).…”