Veterinaria

Research article

Intestinal morphology and intestinal mucosal immune function as enhanced by the long-term feeding supplementation of sodium butyrate in adult breeder roosters

Hind W Alhaj a, Pengyuan Dai a, Yansen Li a, Murtada A Alsiddig a, Peiji Zhu b, Chunmei Li a*

a College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, P.R. China.

b Jiangsu Lihua Animal Husbandry Stock Co., LTD, Changzhou 213168, P.R. China

Abstract

Butyrate is major short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), produced by anaerobic bacterial metabolism, and it showed beneficial health effects in several animal species such as poultry. This study aims to investigate the effects of sodium butyrate (SB) on morphological parameters and immune response gene expressions associated with the intestinal mucosa barrier functions in Chinese Xue Shan breeder roosters. Three hundred adult roosters at 22 weeks were randomly divided into 2 separate groups, control group (fed basal diets) and sodium butyrate group (fed basal diet sublimated by 0.05 % of sodium butyrate). Both groups were fed for 23 consecutive weeks with six replicates per group (each replicate consist of 25 birds). The results showed that the diet supplemented with 0.05% sodium butyrate was observed to maintain the body weight, and, significantly eleveted villus height in jejunum, ileum and villus height to crypt depth ratio in jejunum, as well as increasing the concentration of IL-6 (in the jejunum and ileum), TNF-α (in the ileum). Moreover, SB supplementation significantly up-regulated mRNA expression of mucin (MUC2) in ileum mucosa, while there is no significant increase in the mRNA expression of any of the claudin-1, occluding or zo1 in jejunum and ileum intestinal mucosa. Dietary SB supplementation significantly decreased the IL-β1 (in the serum) these results indicated that sodium butyrate maintains body weight and improve functions of the intestinal barrier led by the enhancement of its morphological development, regulating the immune response and up-regulating MUC2 gene expressions in ileum mucosa. Sodium butyrate at level 0.05 % had slight effects on the intestinal tight junction in adult breeder roosters. Further studies are needed to investigate the effect of the sodium butyrate and its interactions with other feed ingredients in poultry diets.

Keywords: Sodium butyrate, Immune function, Intestinal mucosa, Breeder Roosters.

Received: Aug 12, 2017 Revised: Sep 08, 2017 Accepted: Nov 22, 2017

*Corresponding author: Chunmei Li E-mail: chunmeili@njau.edu.cn