Effects of Dietary Supplementation of Lactobacillus plantarum on Growth Performance and Serum Concentration of Amino Acids in Weaned Piglets Cai Y.H., Aguilar Y.M.1, Yu L., Wang Y., Liu H.B., Liu G.1,2,*, Zhong J.1, Jiang Y.B., Yin Y.L.2 China Animal Disease Control Center, Tiangui Street No. 17, Daxing District, Beijing-100000, China 1Scientific Observing and Experimental Station of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science in South-Central, Ministry of Agriculture, Hunan Provincial Engineering Research Center of Healthy Livestock, Key Laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan-410125, China 2State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing-100101, China *Corresponding author: gangle.liu@gmail.com
Online published on 18 October, 2014. Abstract This study investigated the effects of different doses of Lactobacillus plantarum on growth performance and serum concentration of amino acids in weaned piglets. A total of 32 piglets [(Yorkshire × Landrace) × Duroc], with an initial BW of 5.6±0.31 kg and weaned at 21d of age, were used for 28d. Pigs were assigned to four experimental treatments with eight replications per treatment and one pig per replication according to a completely randomized design. Dietary treatments consisted of a control group fed with basal alone (T0), Lactobacillus plantarum at 1011 cfu kg−1 (T1), Lactobacillus plantarum at 5×1011 cfu kg−1 (T2), and Lactobacillus plantarum at 10×1011 cfu kg−1 (T3). Supplementation of Lactobacillus plantarum, increased the final BW (P<0.05) and average daily gain (ADG), and decreased (P<0.05) feed:gain ratio and diarrhoea rate compared with the control group (T0). Also, T2 showed the better results on final BW, ADG and diarrhoea rate (P<0.05) compared to other treatments with Lactobacillus plantarum. Likewise, supplementation of Lactobacillus plantarum (mainly the T2) increased (P<0.05) the serum concentrations of lysine, arginine, serine, glutamate, glycine and alanine, and decreased (P<0.05) the concentration of tyrosine; the other amino acids remained similar among the dietary groups. These findings show a beneficial effect of dietary supplementation of Lactobacillus plantarum at 5×1011 cfu kg−1 on growth performance and the serum concentration of some essentials amino acids and non-essentials in weaned piglets. Top Keywords Growth performance, Lactobacillus plantarum, Piglet, Probiotic, Serum amino acids. Top |