Effects of dietary postbiotic and inulin on growth performance, IGF1 and GHR mRNA expression, faecal microbiota and volatile fatty acids in broilers
Kareem et al. BMC Veterinary Research
Effects of dietary postbiotic and inulin on growth performance, IGF1 and GHR mRNA expression, faecal microbiota and volatile fatty acids in broilers
Karwan Yaseen Kareem 1 3
Teck Chwen Loh 1 2
Hooi Ling Foo 0 4
Henny Akit 1
Anjas Asmara Samsudin 1
0 Department of Bioprocess Technology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia , 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor , Malaysia
1 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture , Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor , Malaysia
2 Institute of Tropical Agriculture , Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor , Malaysia
3 Department of Animal Resource, University of salah al-Din , Erbil , Iraq
4 Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia , 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor , Malaysia
Background: Postbiotics (metabolic products by lactic acid bacteria) and prebiotics have been established as substitute to antibiotics in order to enhance immunity and growth performance in broiler chickens. Nonetheless, insufficient information is available on the effects of postbiotics and prebiotics combination on growth performance, faecal microbiota, pH and volatile fatty acids (VFA), as well as liver insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and growth hormone receptor (GHR) mRNA expressions in broiler chickens. The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of different types of postbiotics with different levels of prebiotic (inulin) on broiler for those parameters. Results: The results showed that birds fed T3: (0.3 % RI11 + 0.8 % Inulin), T4: (0.3 % RI11 + 1.0 % Inulin), and T6: (0.3 % RG14+ 1.0 % Inulin) had higher (p < 0.05) final body weight (BW) and total weight gain (WG) than other treatments. Birds fed T3 had lower feed conversion ratio (FCR) which was significantly different from those fed with negative control diet but was similar to other treatments. Postbiotic and inulin increased (p < 0.05) faecal lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and reduced (p < 0.05) Enterobacteriaceae count. Birds fed T4 and T6 had higher faecal acetic acid and propionic acid respectively, and both had higher total VFA and lactic acid bacteria but lower pH and Enterobacteriaceae (ENT) counts compared to other treatments. The liver of birds fed T4 and T6 had higher IGF1 expression compared to other treatments while T6 had higher GHR mRNA expression compared to other treatments. Conclusions: Results indicate that the addition of postbiotics and inulin combinations had beneficial effects on total BW, feed efficiency, mucosa architecture and IGF1 and GHR mRNA expression in broiler chickens.
Broilers; Inulin; Prebiotic; Postbiotic; Intestinal microbiota; IGF1; GHR; Volatile fatty acid
Background
Intestinal microbiota play a vital role in the nutritional,
physiological, immunological, and protective functions
of the host [
1
] and their composition and activities can
be influenced by diet [
2
]. The efficacy of feeding
subtherapeutic levels of antibiotics to modulate gut
microbiota to enhance production performance of
livestock has been espoused [
3
]. Unfortunately, the usage of
antibiotics as feed additives for long periods in poultry
diets can lead to antibiotic resistance [
4
] and high residue
levels in poultry products such as meat and egg [
5, 6
].
Antimicrobial resistance encoding genes may represent
risk to both human and animal health if it is transferred to
other formerly susceptible bacteria [7]. Since the quest for
safer and healthier chicken meat has remarkably increased
in recent time, the use of natural feed additives can
produce antibiotic-free chicken and can also prevent
foodborne diseases [
8
].
In recent years, several feed additives such as
prebiotics, probiotics, symbiotics, postbiotics and the
combination of postbiotics and prebiotics have been used as
growth promoters to replace antibiotics [
9–12
]. The
mode of action of these additives differs. Probiotics
colonize the host digestive system, increase the natural
microbiota and prevent the colonization of pathogenic
organisms [10]. Despite their beneficial effects, most
probiotics especially the plasmids probiotics have
antibiotic resistance genes which can be transferred between
organisms [
13
]. As a consequence, probiotic as a live
bacteria might not be used anymore in the near future.
As a substitute to probiotics, metabolite products
synthesized from probiotic known as postbiotics could be
used. It is believed that postbiotics have the probiotic
effects without living cells [
14–16
]. Prebiotics are
nonliving fibrous feed additives which when added to feed
are preferred by harmful microbes. Prebiotics control
the growth of pathogens (i.e. Escherichia coli and
Salmonella) and stimulate the growth of Bifidobacteria and
Lactobacilli and consequently promoting the health and
performance of animals [
17, 18
]. A typical example of
prebiotics is inulin. Postbiotics and inulin combination
inhibited re (...truncated)