LAURIC ACID BASED ADDITIVES AND PIGLETS FECAL MICROBIOTA

The study presented in the last 2019 ASAS-CSAS Annual Meeting held in Austin, evaluated the effect of two feed lauric acid (LA) based additives on faecal microbiota of piglets. Animals were distributed in four dietary treatments: CON-, without antibiotics; CON+, with Doxycycline; DIC, CON- plus DICOSAN® at 3kg/t and 1kg/t in starter and grower diets; MON, CON- plus monolaurine at 2.1kg/t and 0.7kg/t in starter and grower diets. The dosage of both products was made at same level of LA (0.96kg LA/t starter and 0.32kg LA/t grower). At the end of the study, the 16S rDNA sequencing was performed. The results showed a drastic decrease in the abundance of the dominating genus Prevotella within the MON group compensated by other genera increase, mostly Selenomonadales. Streptococcus, Treponema, and unclassified Erysipelotrichaceae, Dialister or Bacillus increased their respective abundances. Treponema was more pronounced in the DIC, however, all other mentioned genera did not show a similar increase in abundance. Dialister (a marker for disease in humans) showed significantly lower abundance in DIC. Bacterial fingerprints demonstrated a trend for clustering according to treatment. Six of eight CON- samples formed a separate cluster. Six of eight samples of the DIC formed a cluster that shared very low similarity to the CON-. Four of eight CON+ samples formed a separate cluster. MON samples were interspersed among all samples. Observations may indicate a more “healthier” microbiota in DICOSAN® than in MON. DICOSAN® also showed a much closer similarity of bacterial fingerprints indicating a higher potential to modify faecal microbiota than MON.