Available online 19 July 2022, 109107

During weaning, infants and young animals are susceptible to severe enteric infections, thus inducing intestinal microbiota dysbiosis, intestinal inflammation, and impaired intestinal barrier function. Pectin (PEC), a prebiotic polysaccharide, enhances intestinal health with the potential for therapeutic effect on intestinal diseases. One 21-days study was conducted to investigate the protective effect of pectin against intestinal injury induced by intraperitoneal injection of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in a piglet model. A total of 24 piglets (6.77±0.92 kg BW; Duroc × Landrace × Large White; barrows; 21 d of age) were randomly assigned into three groups: control group, LPS-challenged group, and PEC + LPS group. Piglets were administrated with LPS or saline on d14 and d21 of the experiment. All piglets were slaughtered and intestinal samples were collected after 3 h administration on d21. Pectin supplementation ameliorated the LPS-induced inflammation response and damage to the ileal morphology. Meanwhile, pectin also improved intestinal mucin barrier function, increased the mRNA expression of MUC2, and improved intestinal mucus glycosylation. LPS challenge reduced the diversity of intestinal microbiota and enriched the relative abundance of Helicobacter. Pectin restored alpha diversity improved the structure of the gut microbiota by enriching anti-inflammatory bacteria and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA)-producing bacteria, and increased the concentrations of acetate. In addition, Spearman rank correlation analysis also revealed the potential relationship between intestinal microbiota and intestinal morphology, intestinal inflammation, and intestinal glycosylation in piglets. Taken together, these results indicate that pectin enhances intestinal integrity and barrier function by altering intestinal microbiota composition and their metabolites, which subsequently alleviates intestinal injury and finally improves the growth performance of piglets.

The experiments were conducted to investigate the protective effect of pectin against intestinal injury induced by LPS. Our results indicate that pectin enhances intestinal integrity and barrier function through altering intestinal microbiota composition and their metabolites, which subsequently alleviate intestinal injury and finally the performance Download : Download high-res image (216KB)Download : Download full-size image.

Pectin

Piglet

Lipopolysaccharide

Intestinal barrier function

Glycosylation

Microbiota

short-chain fatty acid

average daily feed intake

the ratio of villus height to crypt depth

hematoxylin and eosin stain

periodic acid-Schiff-Alcian Blue stain

Ulex europaeus agglutinin 1

N-acetylglucosamine

Fluorescein Isothiocyanate

4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole

fucosyltransferases 2

beta-1,4-galactosyltransferase 1

beta-1,3-galactosyltransferase 5

beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase 3

core 1 synthase, glycoprotein-N-acetylgalactosamine 3-beta-galactosyltransferase 1

C1GALT1 specific chaperone 1

glucosaminyl (N-acetyl) transferase 3

glucosaminyl (N-acetyl) transferase 1

beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase 6

monocyte chemotactic protein 1

tumor necrosis factor-α

© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.