Theo A Niewold

We previously reported a study on 288 broiler (Gallus gallus) chicks who received caffeine in water between days 3 and 42, at levels of 0, 6.25, 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 mg/kg body weight (BW)/day. In the previous report, we found that caffeine caused pulmonary hypertension (PH)-associated mortality in a significant minority (20%–30%) of birds, includi...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the histological effects of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and zearalenone (ZEA) on the liver tissue of the rainbow trout. In this study, 540 rainbow trout 12.07±0.23 g (Mean±SD), as 9 experimental treatments with three replications were fed separately and simultaneously with diets containing different concentrations of A...

Although several studies have reported co-occurrence of mycotoxins in fish feed limited information is available on the physiological effects. In the current study, the single and combined effect of added dietary AFB1 and ZEN in various concentrations for 60 days was tested in rainbow trout on growth parameters, mortality, intestinal digestive enzy...

Broiler chickens reared under heat stress (HS) conditions have decreased growth performance and show metabolic and immunologic alterations. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of supplementation with a standardized blend of plant-derived isoquinoline alkaloids (IQ) on the growth performance, protein catabolism, intestinal barrier function, and...

Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed pharmacological substances in the world, found in food and drinks. The effects of caffeine on human health and cardiovascular disease have been the focus of much debate, and much research has been performed in various animal models, including some in chicken. Previously, we reported caffeine to cause bloo...

Two broiler trials were designed to investigate the relationship between the concentration of non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) in wheat and 1) its nutritional value for broilers and 2) the efficacy of exogenous enzymes. In a balance trial, diets were formulated with 3 wheat cultivars (Rustic and Viscount—medium NSP, Centenaire—high NSP) and were te...

Background and aims Malnutrition and the use of Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) contribute considerably to hospital costs. Recently, we reported on the introduction of malnutrition screening and monitoring of TPN use in our hospital, which resulted in a large (40%) reduction in TPN and improved quality of nutritional care in two years (2011/12). H...

In Europe, wheat is commonly used in broiler diets. The chemical composition and energy value of wheat can vary considerably between different wheat cultivars or due to different growing and post-harvest storage conditions. The current study assessed the chemical composition in 153 batches of wheat used for poultry feeds from 15 European countries...

The growth promoting effect of supplementing animal feed with antibiotics like tetracycline has traditionally been attributed to their antibiotic character. However, more evidence has been accumulated on their direct anti-inflammatory effect during the last two decades. Here we used a pig model to explore the systemic molecular effect of feed suppl...

The EU ban on antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP) has initiated a search for nonantibiotic alternatives. It has been demonstrated that certain antibiotics and non-antibiotic alternatives enhance growth by inhibiting inflammatory cells, i.e. neutrophils and macrophages in the intestine. There is very little information on the effect of anti-inflamm...

There is a definite need for biomarkers for intestinal health in vivo, which can be determined in samples obtained in a non-invasive or minimally invasive way. In humans, there are approximately fifteen biomarkers suggested, and test and reagents are available, whereas this is hardly the case for pigs and chicken. Here we review (possible) biomarke...

During the last years, an antimicrobial protein from the RegIII family has been consistently identified as one of the main up-regulated mRNA transcripts in the pig small intestinal mucosa during different infections such as enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). This transcript has been mainly referred to in the literature as pancreatitis-associa...

Three wheat cultivars (Orpheus, Rustic, and Viscount) were used to formulate 3 test feeds (62.4% wheat) in a broiler digestibility trial. The diets were fed to male Ross 308 broiler chickens. The wheat cultivars mainly differed in their amount of non-starch polysaccharides ( NSP: ). The cultivar Orpheus was chosen to represent a high amount of NSP...

To study host-probiotic interactions in parts of the intestine only accessible in humans by surgery (jejunum, ileum and colon), pigs were used as model for humans. Groups of eight 6-week-old pigs were repeatedly orally administered with 5 x 10(12) CFU Lactobacillus plantarum 299v (L. plantarum 299v) or PBS, starting with a single dose followed by t...

Pig vocalisations convey information about their current state of health and welfare. Continuously monitoring these vocalisations can provide useful information for the farmer. For instance, pig screams can indicate stressful situations. When monitoring screams, other sounds can interfere with scream detection. Therefore, identifying screams from o...

Livestock production is changing worldwide. Amongst the changes are those instigated by legislation such as restrictions on antibiotics and antibiotic growth promoters, well fare regulations, etc., all forcing livestock producers to adapt to new husbandry, management, nutrition and healthcare techniques. Food safety is an explosive political issue....

Good health is a key element in pig welfare and steady weight gain is considered an indicator of good health and productivity. Therefore, continuous weight monitoring is an essential method to ensure pigs are in good health. The purpose of this work was to investigate feasibility of an automated method to estimate weight of pigs by using image proc...

The non-antibiotic anti-inflammatory theory of antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP) predicts that alternatives can be selected by simple in vitro tests. In vitro, the known AGP oxytetracycline (OTC) and a Macleaya cordata extract (MCE) had an anti-inflammatory effect with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of 88 and 132 mg/l, respectively. In...

Health is a key element in pig welfare and steady weight gain is considered an indicator of good health and productivity. However, many diseases such as diarrhoea cause a substantial reduction in food intake and weight gain in pigs. Therefore, continuous weight monitoring is an essential method to ensure pigs are in good health. The purpose of this...

Most commonly, salivary cortisol is used in pig stress assessment, alternative salivary biomarkers are scarcely studied. Here, salivary cortisol and two alternative salivary biomarkers, haptoglobin and chromogranin A were measured in a pig stress study. Treatment pigs (n = 24) were exposed to mixing and feed deprivation, in two trials, and compared...

The addition of exogenous xylanases (EX-XYL) to wheat-based poultry feeds is a common practice today. Wheat contains xylanase inhibitors (XI) and grain-associated xylanases (GA-XYL), which could affect the action of the EX-XYL. In this study, both GA-XYL and XI activity in feeding-quality wheat were assessed. In addition, the effect of the conditio...

There is increasing pressure to reduce the prophylactic and therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal production based on the fear for inducing bacterial resistance. Antibiotics are very cost effective promoters of growth and health in production animals. Therefore, farmers would only be willing to reduce antibiotics if effective alternatives are av...

Background and aims Since 2007, a steady increase in total parenteral nutrition (TPN) consumption and associated costs was noticed in our hospital. High use of TPN in hospitalized patients contributes considerably to hospital costs. Although malnutrition is a serious problem in patients, it is not always clear whether or not TPN is really necessary...

One of the major challenges in pig production is managing digestive health to maximize feed conversion and growth rates, but also to minimize treatment costs and to warrant public health. There is a great interest in the development of useful tools for intestinal health monitoring and the investigation of possible prophylactic/ therapeutic interven...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility and validity of an automated image processing method to detect the activity status of pigs. Top-view video images were captured for forty piglets, housed ten per pen. Each pen was monitored by a top-view CCD camera. The image analysis protocol to automatically quantify activity consisted o...

Abstract Weaned piglets are very susceptible to diarrhea caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli. In the past, various natural components were proposed to have beneficial effects by reducing the effects of diarrheal infectious diseases in humans and animals, and thus may represent an alternative for the use of (prophylactic) antibiotics. Alterna...

Background The aim of this study was to identify transcription factors/regulators that play a crucial role in steering the (innate) immune response shortly (within a few hours) after the first contact of the intestinal mucosa with an inflammatory mediator, and to test whether the processes regulated by these factors/regulators can be modulated by c...

Individual identification in pigs is a key point for management. Many behaviors such as resting, activity, feeding and drinking are better to be monitored individually. The purpose of this work was to investigate feasibility of an automated method to identify marked pigs in a pen in experimental conditions and for behavior-related research by using...

Every year over 59 billion animals are slaughtered for worldwide food production. The increasing demand for animal products has made mass animal breeding more important than ever. Satisfying the needs of the market, farmers will have to use automatic tools to monitor the welfare and health of their animals since manual monitoring is expensive and t...

Recently, polyphenol extracts were suggested to inhibit binding of Escherichia coli heat labile enterotoxin (LT) to its intestinal receptor GM1. Therefore, polyphenols are promising feed or food supplements to combat enterotoxigenic infections. Little is known of the precise mechanism, or the type of polyphenol required. Here, seven different polyp...

Wheat is one of the major feed ingredients in poultry diets. Non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) from wheat can have a negative impact on animal performance and therefore NSP-degrading feed enzymes are commonly added to wheat-based diets. Variation exists in the amount of NSP present in wheat as well as in the composition of the NSP-fraction. This int...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility and validity of an automated image processing method to detect the locomotion of pigs in a group housed environment and under experimental conditions. Topview video images were captured for forty piglets, housed ten per pen. On average, piglets had a weight of 27 kg (SD=4.4 kg) at the star...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) refers to non-invasive E. coli bacteria which adhere to the microvilli of small intestinal epithelial cells without inducing morphological lesions and producing enterotoxins that act locally on enterocytes (Schroyen et al., 2012). Enteric diseases due to strains of ETEC are the most commonly occurring form of...

Serum amyloid A (SAA) is a major acute phase protein in most species, and is widely employed as a health marker. Systemic SAA isoforms (SAA1, and SAA2) are apolipoproteins synthesized by the liver which associate with high density lipoproteins (HDL). Local SAA (SAA3) isoforms are synthesized in other tissues and are present in colostrums, mastitic...

Diarrhoea due to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli with fimbriae F4 (ETEC-F4) is an important problem in neonatal and just weaned piglets and hence for the pig farming industry. There is substantial evidence for a genetic basis for susceptibility to ETEC-F4 since not all piglets suffer from diarrhoea after an ETEC-F4 infection. It is assumed that th...

Diarrhoea in neonatal and early-weaned piglets due to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli-F4 (ETEC-F4) is an important problem in the pig farming industry. There is substantial evidence for a genetic basis for susceptibility to ETEC-F4 since not all pigs suffer from diarrhoea after an ETEC-F4 infection. A region on SSC13 has been found to be in close...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains that produce heat-stable (ST) and/or heat -labile (LT) enterotoxins are cause of post – weaning diarrhea in piglets. However, the relative importance of the different enterotoxins in host immune responses against ETEC infection has been poorly defined. In the present study, several isogenic mutant str...

Microarray data expressed as a log2 fold change of PBS and mutant ETEC-infected verus wild type-infected (WT) small intestinal segments. (DOCX)

Dietary oligosaccharides can influence the composition of the gut microbiota, and some are suggested to improve host resistance against infections. The exact mechanisms involved are largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to determine the response of the porcine small intestinal mucosa to feeding arabinoxylan oligosaccharides (AXOS), and...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is one of the most frequently isolated enteropathogens in production animals, especially pigs and calves. Economically, the swine industry is by far the most affected by infections with ETEC because of mortality, morbidity and decreased growth rate of newborn and early-weaned piglets. After ingestion by the a...

Earlier, it was proposed that the growth promoting properties of Antimicrobial Growth Promoters (AGPs) in poultry feed are based on their non-antibiotic anti-inflammatory properties. Inflammation associated growth retardation is due to catabolism and reduction of appetite, and AGP can attenuate this. Alternatives to AGP can be selected based on kno...

The Free Ion Activity Model (FIAM) predicts that metal uptake in biota is related to the free ion activity in the external solution and that metal complexes do not contribute. However, studies with plants have shown that labile metal complexes enhance metal bioavailability when the uptake is rate-limited by transport of the free ion in solution to...

The high similarity between pigs and humans makes pigs a good gastrointestinal (GI) model for humans. Recently an epithelial cell line originating from the jejunum of pig (IPEC-J2) became available. Once validated, this model can be used to investigate the complex interactions occurring in the intestine. The advantages of using IPEC-J2 as in vitro...

The acute-phase serum amyloid A (SAA) protein family comprises two main circulating (systemic) isoforms, SAA1 and SAA2, synthesised in liver and one local isoform, SAA3, produced in extrahepatic tissues. Systemic and local SAA show structural differences, which suggests different functions. In the pig, AA-amyloidosis is extremely uncommon, and the...

Complete list of differentially expressed genes (additional to Table 4).

Pigs frequently encounter bacterial infections like enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). Due to rising concerns about antibiotic resistance of bacteria, there is a large demand for natural alternatives to combat these ETEC infections. Plant polyphenols have been suggested to reduce both the binding of cholera toxin to the GM1 ganglioside and th...

IPEC-J2, a promising in vitro model system, is not well characterized especially on the transcriptional level, in contrast to human counterparts. The aim of this study was to characterize the gene expression in IPEC-J2 cells when coincubated with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC), nonpathogenic E. coli, and E. coli endotoxin. Apical infection...

Acute secretory diarrhea is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in young animals and humans. Deaths result from excessive fluid and electrolyte losses. The disease is caused by non-invasive bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli which produce enterotoxins, however, much less is known about the role of individual host responses....

Dietary addition of the leucine metabolite β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB) promotes growth in various species. In addition, HMB is described to enhance immune responses which might be associated with metabolic costs. We elaborated further on the role of HMB in growth, metabolism and immunity of meat-type chickens using the following parameters: zo...

We have previously immunologically typed amyloid protein extracted from a horse with malignant histiolymtphocytic lymphosarcoma as immunoglobulin (Ig)-derived amylaid. In the present paper, the Ig character of the horse amyloid is confirmed by the amino acid sequence of the constituent protein. Its major component is identified as a 217-residue com...

Rotaviruses are a major cause of severe diarrhea in young children worldwide. Most studies regarding the molecular mechanism underlying rotavirus induced disease focus on isolated enterocytes or enterocyte cell-lines. In vivo, mature enterocytes lining the intestinal epithelial layer are the primarily target cells for rotavirus replication, however...

Host-microorganism interactions in the intestinal tract are complex, and little is known about specific nonpathogenic microbial factors triggering host responses in the gut. In this study, mannose-specific interactions of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v with jejunal epithelium were investigated using an in situ pig Small Intestinal Segment Perfusion m...

Germ-free piglets were orally infected with virulent rotavirus to collect jejunal mucosal scrapings at 12 and 18 hours post infection (two piglets per time point). IFN-gamma mRNA expression was stimulated in the mucosa of all four infected piglets, indicating that they all responded to the rotavirus infection. RNA pools prepared from two infected p...

Age-dependent changes in blood concentrations of four bovine acute phase proteins (APPs), serum amyloid A (SAA), lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP), haptoglobin (Hp) and alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein (AGP), were examined using two groups of newborn dairy calves. APP concentrations were monitored for either 3 weeks (Group A, n=13) or 2 months (Gr...

In order to establish the mechanism of spray dried plasma powder (SDPP) in improving pig health and performance, a diet containing either 8% SDPP, spray dried immune plasma powder (SDIPP), or control protein (soybean and whey) ration was fed to piglets in an experimental model of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli F4 (ETEC) post-weaning diarrhoea (PW...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the potential effects of dietary L-carnitine supplementation on acute phase protein response upon a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge of male broiler chickens receiving a commercial broiler diet supplemented with 15 or 100 mg L-carnitine/kg or an unsupplemented (control) diet from 14 days of age o...

Linseed as a feed ingredient contains a number of constituents, such as mucilage, gel forming polysaccharides, structural carbohydrates and ¿-3 fatty acids, which could have functional properties in relation to maintaining and supporting gastro-intestinal health in post weaning piglets. Intestinal gene expression was studied in weanling piglets fed...

Societal concern and government regulations increasingly press for restricting the use of antibiotics as antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP). The search for alternatives is on, hampered by a lack of knowledge about the exact mechanism of AGP. Feed additives, such as AGP and alternatives, interact with the intestine. In the intestine, feed componen...

Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium (S. typhimurium) species are a leading cause of human invasive gastroenteritis. There is increasing in vitro evidence about Salmonella interaction with isolated cells or cell lines (macrophages, and enterocytes) on the molecular level, however, very little is known about in vivo interactions during actual inv...

Defensins are antimicrobial peptides that play an important role in the innate immune response in the intestine. Up to date, only one beta-defensin (pBD-1), has been described in pig, which was found to be expressed at low levels in the intestine. We set-up a quantitative PCR method to detect the gene expression of pBD-1 and a newly discovered porc...

We previously demonstrated that oral application of the recombinant single-domain antibody fragment (VHH) clone K609, directed against Escherichia coli F4 fimbriae, reduced E. coli-induced diarrhoea in piglets, but only at high VHH doses. We have now shown that a large portion of the orally applied K609 VHH is proteolytically degraded in the stomac...

The aim of the study was to determine the intraarticular serum amyloid A (SAA) response pattern in horses with inflammatory arthritis. Inflammatory arthritis was induced by injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the radiocarpal joint of four horses. Serum and synovial fluid (SF) samples were collected before and at 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96, and...

A systemic acute phase reaction may develop during infection and inflammation, due to the action of peripherally liberated proinflammatory cytokines. Hepatic metabolism changes, and negative and positive acute phase proteins (APPs) can be measured in the blood: the APPs therefore represent appropriate analytes to assess health. While they are non-s...

A review of the systemic acute phase reaction with major cytokines involved, and the hepatic metabolic changes, negative and positive acute phase proteins (APPs) with function and associated pathology is given. It appears that APPs represent appropriate analytes for assessment of animal health. Whereas they represent non-specific markers as biologi...

Oral administration of polyclonal antibodies directed against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) F4 fimbriae is used to protect against piglet post-weaning diarrhoea. For cost reasons, we aim to replace these polyclonal antibodies by recombinant llama single-domain antibody fragments (VHHs) that can be produced efficiently in microorganisms. S...