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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Food Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1558588
This article is part of the Research Topic The Interaction Between Food Ingredients and Gut Microbiome on Health and Disease View all 13 articles
Dietary fatty acids promote gut health in weaned piglets by regulating gut microbiota and immune function
Provisionally accepted
Zongze Fan 1
Lei lei 2 Xingyue Wu 1 Ronghui Xing 1 Pengfei Du 1 Ziyang Wang 1 Huijuan Zhao 3
Yanqun Huang 1 Wen Chen 1*
Xuemeng Si 1*- 1 Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China
- 2 Zhengzhou Agricultural Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment, Zhengzhou, China
- 3 Delvigent Biotechnology Co., Ltd, Cangzhou, China
Background: Post-weaning diarrhea in piglets is a common challenge that adversely impacts growth performance and increases mortality, leading to severe economic losses.Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) and short-chain fatty acids (SCFA)are frequently used as feed additives due to their bioactive properties. This study evaluated the effects of two different blends of MCFA and SCFA (VSM and VS+VM) as alternatives to zinc oxide (ZnO) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, oxidative stress, inflammatory, and gut microbiota composition in weaned piglets.: A total of 108 piglets (8.22 ± 0.51 kg) were randomly assigned to three treatments: control (CON, basal diet+ZnO), VSM (basal diet + higher MCFA and lower SCFA content) and VS+VM (basal diet + higher SCFA and lower MCFA content ). Results indicated that Both VSM and VS+VM, can replace ZnO to relieve diarrhea of weaned piglets as evidenced by increased average daily gain (ADG) and decreased feed to gain ratio (F/G) in 1-15 days, with no difference in final body weight compared to the CON group. Additionally, dietary MCFA and SCFA supplementation improves anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory capacity by decreased of Malonaldehyde (MDA) activity, and inhibited proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and interleukin (IL-1β, IL-17A) secretion. Further study showed that the protective effect of MCFA and SCFA were associated with restoring gut barrier, upregulating abundances of Lactobacillus and Roseburia of piglets. Interpretation: Collectively, the combination of MCFA and SCFA alleviated oxidative stress, modulated inflammation, and supported gut barrier function in weaned piglets, offering a promising alternative to ZnO, with VSM showing superior effects.
Keywords: Medium-chain and short-chain fatty acids, Zinc Oxide, Oxidative Stress, Inflammatory, Lactobacillus, Weaned piglets
Received: 10 Jan 2025; Accepted: 25 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fan, lei, Wu, Xing, Du, Wang, Zhao, Huang, Chen and Si. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wen Chen, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China
Xuemeng Si, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.