Microencapsulated Lactobacillus plantarum promotes intestinal development through gut colonization of layer chicks

Abstract

The effects of in microencapsulation (LPM) on intestinal development in layer chicks were investigated in this study, as well as the colonization of in the gut. A total of 480 healthy Hy-Line Brown layer chicks at 0 d old were randomly divided into 4 groups (8 replicates each treatment), and the diets of these birds were supplemented with nothing (control), (0.02 g/kg feed; 10 CFU/kg feed), LPM (1.0 g/kg feed; 10 CFU/kg feed) and wall material of LPM (WM; 0.98 g/kg feed), respectively. Compared to control, LPM improved growth performance and intestinal development of layer chicks, evidenced by significantly increased body weight, average daily gain, average daily feed intake, villus height, villus height/crypt depth, as well as weight and length of the duodenum, jejunum and ileum ( < 0.05). These results could be attributed to the increased colonization of in the gut, which was verified by significant increases in lactic acid content, viable counts in chyme and mucosa ( < 0.05), as well as a visible rise in number of strains labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate. Meanwhile, the relative abundances of and significantly increased in response to microencapsulated supplementation ( < 0.05), accompanied by the significant up-regulation of colonization related genes ( < 0.05), encoding solute carrier family, monocarboxylate transporter, activin A receptor, succinate receptor and secretogranin II. To sum up, microencapsulated supplementation promoted intestinal development, which could be attributed to the enhancement of colonization in the intestine through the mutual assistance of and interactions with colonization related transmembrane proteins.