Interpretive Summary: Research summary: influence of immune and oxidative stress biomarkers ins the jejunal mucosa on growth performance of nursery pigs

By: Sung Woo Kim, Marcos E Duarte, Alexa R Gormley

Implications

• The jejunum is the primary site for digestion, nutrient absorption, and protection from antigens and toxins, making its functional integrity during the post-weaning period a key determinant of growth performance in nursery pigs.
• Inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers in the jejunal mucosa are closely associated with growth performance and can serve as functional indicators of intestinal health under post-weaning conditions.
• Many biomarkers exhibit threshold responses, suggesting that variation below biologically meaningful breakpoints may have minimal impact on performance, whereas exceeding these thresholds results in performance reduction.
• Inflammatory and oxidative stress responses in the jejunum tend to impair growth prior to reductions in feed intake, cautioning that reliance on in-barn observations alone may underestimate early performance losses.
• Biomarkers should be interpreted within the appropriate biological context as understanding their relative sensitivity is imperative to early detection and subsequent intervention.

Introduction

The jejunum is the primary site of nutrient digestion and absorption. In the context of animal production, the efficiency of nutrient digestion and absorption heavily influences growth rates providing economic advantages to producers (Campbell et al., 2013; Patience et al., 2015). In addition, the jejunum is a part of the gastrointestinal tract, the largest immune organ in the body, that directly interacts with dietary and environmental antigens and toxins. The intestinal immune system is characterized by complex interactions between the native microbiota, intestinal epithelial cells, intestinal immune cells, and host signaling pathways that protect intestinal tissue and respond to potential threats (Burkey et al., 2009). Considering that the functional capacity of the jejunum related to both digestion and immune functions is a key determinant of production efficiency, maintaining intestinal integrity during the weaning transition is critical in modern pig production systems. However, when weaned at this early age, the intestine and its immune system are still immature (Moeser et al., 2017). As a result, nursery pigs are vulnerable to intestinal damage from weaning stress and pathogenic colonization causing inflammation and oxidative damages (Kim and Duarte, 2021).

Read the full article in Animal Frontiers: The Role of Gut Permeability in Livestock.