Bacteriophage and probiotics both enhance the performance of growing pigs but bacteriophage are more effective☆
Introduction
In South Korea, use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feeds has been forbidden since 2011 (Global Agricultural Information Network, 2011). Therefore, the search continues for non-antibacterial growth promoters that are active in vivo, are fast acting, possess a broad spectrum in activity, do not induce bacterial resistance and subsequently promote growth performance of pigs. A number of research findings on the use of alternatives like probiotics, oligosaccharides, organic acids and antimicrobial peptides to replace antibiotics in feed have been documented with varying success (Choi et al., 2011a, Yan et al., 2011, Yoon et al., 2012, Yoon et al., 2013, Lee et al., 2014). In this context, bacteriophages are believed to be an ideal candidate, due to their natural antibacterial properties (Jamalludeen et al., 2009, Yan et al., 2012, Wang et al., 2013).
Bacteriophages are obligate intracellular parasites that multiply inside bacteria by making use of some or all of the host biosynthetic machinery (McGrath et al., 2004). Bacteriophages are amongst the most abundant living entities on earth playing important roles in maintaining the natural abundance and distribution of microorganisms (Sulakvelidze, 2011) and have been used to both prevent and treat bacterial diseases in human and animals. Most of the previous studies on bacteriophages evaluated their therapeutic effects on disease challenged pigs (Barrow, 2001, Jamalludeen et al., 2009, Wall et al., 2010) and poultry (Huff et al., 2002, Toro et al., 2005, Atterbury et al., 2007). Previous studies with dietary supplementation of anti-Salmonella bacteriophage reported improved performance and reduced bacterial shedding in growing pigs (Gebru et al., 2010, Yan et al., 2012). Recently it has been reported that supplementation with bacteriophages to laying hens diets resulted in greater feed efficiency, egg production and improved excreta microbiota (Zhao and Kim, 2012, Wang et al., 2013). Previous studies in the authors laboratory reported that a multimicrobe probiotic products had potential to improve the performance and gut health and could be used as an alternative to antibiotics growth promoters in pigs and broilers (Choi et al., 2011b, Kim et al., 2012). The present study was designed to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with bacteriophage, probiotics and combination of bacteriophage and probiotics on growth performance, ATTD of nutrients, fecal bacterial populations and serum immunoglobulins of growing pigs.
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Materials and methods
The project underwent proper ethical standards and the experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea. These experiments were conducted at the facility of Kangwon National University farm and the pigs (Landrace×Yorkshire×Duroc) were housed in partially slotted and concrete floor pens with a pen size of 2.80 m×5.00 m. All pens were equipped with a self-feeder and nipple drinker to allow ad libitum access to
Growth performance
In experiment 1, ADG and ADFI increased linearly (P<0.05) with increasing dietary bacteriophage supplementation but there was no treatment effect on F:G (Table 3). In experiment 2, pigs fed the B and BP diets exhibited similar performance and had significantly better ADG, ADFI and F:G than those on the other two treatments. Pigs on the P treatment also grew faster and ate more than their control counterparts (Table 4).
Apparent total tract digestibility
In experiment 1, ATTD of DM increased linearly (P<0.05) with increasing
Discussion
Altering and enhancing normal gut bacterial populations by targeting intestinal pathogens through nonantibiotic approaches can improve the gut health, immunity and performance of pigs and poultry (Choi et al., 2011b, Sen et al., 2012, Jo et al., 2012, Kim et al., 2012, Yoon et al., 2012). Among various nonantibiotic alternatives, bacteriophages have received attention due to their natural antimicrobial properties (Gebru et al., 2010, Wang et al., 2013).
Results obtained in the current study
Conclusions
The present results suggest that bacteriophages and probiotics both improve different aspects of grower pig's performance but that bacteriophages are more effective than probiotics and would appear to offer an alternative to antibiotic type growth promoters.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
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This study was supported by CTC Bio, Inc. and the Institute of Animal Resources at Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.