Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MonoGutHealth (TRAINING AND RESEARCH FOR SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS TO SUPPORT AND SUSTAIN GUT HEALTH AND REDUCE LOSSES IN MONOGASTRIC LIVESTOCK)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-12-31
The consequences of excessive medication in livestock production are of great concern worldwide. The simplest solution to drastically reduce the need for medication in livestock production is to create optimal conditions for raising healthy animals. Recent work suggests that programming the gastrointestinal tract development and microbial colonisation early in life by using targeted feeding strategies provides a window of opportunity to reduce the impact of production diseases at later stages in the production cycle. To achieve these objectives, 11 early-stage researchers (ESRs) test the efficiency of innovative feeding strategies before birth and/or during the early neonatal periods of pigs and chickens to improve the development of the gastrointestinal tract and its microbiome and to enhance their resilience to pathogen challenges. These innovative tools are developed through intersectoral and synergistic collaborations between industry, academia and research institutions. In addition to the scientific part of the project, the ESRs attended three training schools dedicated to in-depth advanced research and communication skills for the last two years. In the remaining two training schools (2023 -2024), the ESRs will receive skills for their future careers in academia, industry and other sectors. At the end of their projects, the ESRs will not only have a profound knowledge of their research field through their individual projects but already at the early stage of their careers, they will have benefited from the interdisciplinarity of the multisectoral network by 1) participating in the project-specific meetings, 2) attending the training courses for advanced research and transferable skills, 3) completing meaningful secondments to industry partners, 4) actively contributing to national and international dissemination, communication, exploitation and outreach activities.
The main achievements of the first 24 months of MonoGutHealth include filling the 11 ESR positions, setting up and starting all individual ESR projects, planning and carrying out three training schools for the ESRs, organizing three project meetings, creating awareness among the scientific community and industry stakeholders about the topics studied. The project advances as planned. Using different social media platforms, ESRs continuously report on their projects' progress and their experiences during the industrial secondments. They also “created” a Think Tank where they discussed the various MonoGutHealth topics and shared their thoughts with our followers on social media through polls. Although most of the research activities are still ongoing, some exiting results are available:
Pigs studies
• A MACHINE LEARNING MODEL was established using picture frames of newborn piglets that help to identify piglets suffering from intra-uterine growth retardation syndrome.
• An innovative chime sampling capsule – called CapSa – was tested and proven to be a good tool for collecting small intestine samples from pigs. It will allow us to study the pig microbiota development over his lifespan.
• Supplementing milk to newly weaned pigs provided with a dry pelleted starter diet for 11 days increased feed intake and growth during that period. In addition, supplementing weaned pigs with milk and a liquid starter diet for more than four days post-weaning improved the intestinal structure and increased the brush border membrane enzyme activity.
• Various antibacterial plant additives fed to weaning piglets reduced pathogenic Escherichia coli abundance in the faeces and lowered the incidence of post-weaning diarrhoea in pigs.
• Neonatal and pre-weaning oral glutamine supplementation was not associated with improved growth. Interestingly, analysis of plasma metabolites suggests that low birth weight piglets have an imbalanced glucose metabolism and potentially an altered oxygen availability compared to normal birth weight littermates in prenatal life and are thus less mature.
Chicken studies
• A new copro-antigen ELISA test was developed that can accurately differentiate between non-infected and nematode-infected chickens.
• Compared to broilers with a high body weight at day seven of life, those with a low body weight consistently remained lighter during the entire rearing period. This effect was due to their lower feed intake, average daily gain, and impaired development of the gut and ancillary organs.
• Contrary to previous results, increasing incubation temperature at embryonic days 4 to 7 did not affect the muscle weight of breast and leg muscles nor the expressions of myogenic regulatory factors and metabolic enzymes in Ross broiler chickens.
• In vitro screening showed that specific genera of lactic acid bacteria combined with prebiotics or plant extracts possess strong antioxidant and radical scavenging activities. Subsequent in vivo studies will show how well these candidates will mitigate oxidative and heat stress in poultry.
• The six lactic acid bacteria that were tested showed good in-vitro anti-Salmonella and anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects at varying degrees, while a synergistic anti-Salmonella effect of Leuconostoc mesenteroides in co-culture was observed when supplemented with garlic and turmeric extracts.
Pigs studies
• A MACHINE LEARNING MODEL was established using picture frames of newborn piglets that help to identify piglets suffering from intra-uterine growth retardation syndrome.
• An innovative chime sampling capsule – called CapSa – was tested and proven to be a good tool for collecting small intestine samples from pigs. It will allow us to study the pig microbiota development over his lifespan.
• Supplementing milk to newly weaned pigs provided with a dry pelleted starter diet for 11 days increased feed intake and growth during that period. In addition, supplementing weaned pigs with milk and a liquid starter diet for more than four days post-weaning improved the intestinal structure and increased the brush border membrane enzyme activity.
• Various antibacterial plant additives fed to weaning piglets reduced pathogenic Escherichia coli abundance in the faeces and lowered the incidence of post-weaning diarrhoea in pigs.
• Neonatal and pre-weaning oral glutamine supplementation was not associated with improved growth. Interestingly, analysis of plasma metabolites suggests that low birth weight piglets have an imbalanced glucose metabolism and potentially an altered oxygen availability compared to normal birth weight littermates in prenatal life and are thus less mature.
Chicken studies
• A new copro-antigen ELISA test was developed that can accurately differentiate between non-infected and nematode-infected chickens.
• Compared to broilers with a high body weight at day seven of life, those with a low body weight consistently remained lighter during the entire rearing period. This effect was due to their lower feed intake, average daily gain, and impaired development of the gut and ancillary organs.
• Contrary to previous results, increasing incubation temperature at embryonic days 4 to 7 did not affect the muscle weight of breast and leg muscles nor the expressions of myogenic regulatory factors and metabolic enzymes in Ross broiler chickens.
• In vitro screening showed that specific genera of lactic acid bacteria combined with prebiotics or plant extracts possess strong antioxidant and radical scavenging activities. Subsequent in vivo studies will show how well these candidates will mitigate oxidative and heat stress in poultry.
• The six lactic acid bacteria that were tested showed good in-vitro anti-Salmonella and anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects at varying degrees, while a synergistic anti-Salmonella effect of Leuconostoc mesenteroides in co-culture was observed when supplemented with garlic and turmeric extracts.
MonoGutHealth is conceptualised to address highly relevant topics of livestock science and propose an innovative doctoral training program. This means that the ESRs perform innovative science on highly relevant research topics in leading European institutions of livestock science. The interdisciplinarity of the research is demonstrated by the fact that each ESR is exposed to his own research project, follows five network-wide training schools focusing on scientific and soft skills and at least one industrial secondment. The unique skill sets and the communication, dissemination and exploitation expertise acquired through MonoGutHealth will be of high value for the future careers of all ESRs.
The 16 industry partners involved are a crucial part of MonoGutHealth. They offer their expertise for research projects and share their vision of future challenges in European livestock production. They also open their doors and allow the ERSs to get exposed to the non-academic environment (hands-on training during industry secondments) and see the opportunities outside academia.
Importantly, all non-academic partners expect to generate new business from the research by gaining a competitive advantage for the exploitation of new products and production strategies like nutritional alternatives to antimicrobials, new pre-birth applications for monogastrics, new and economically relevant organisation of a hatchery line.
Although pork and chicken meat are major food sources, society frequently questions the production methods (the research performed on these animals) and the safety of these products. Thus, there seems to be a widening gap between the pig and chicken production sectors and society. MonoGutHealth engages in a dialogue with society using different media channels to bridge the gap between citizens/consumers, livestock scientists, and stakeholders from the pig and chicken production sector. To this end, ESRs share their experience during their training, openly discuss the issues modern monogastric production faces, and show how their project within MonoGutHealth contributes to solutions for these issues.
The 16 industry partners involved are a crucial part of MonoGutHealth. They offer their expertise for research projects and share their vision of future challenges in European livestock production. They also open their doors and allow the ERSs to get exposed to the non-academic environment (hands-on training during industry secondments) and see the opportunities outside academia.
Importantly, all non-academic partners expect to generate new business from the research by gaining a competitive advantage for the exploitation of new products and production strategies like nutritional alternatives to antimicrobials, new pre-birth applications for monogastrics, new and economically relevant organisation of a hatchery line.
Although pork and chicken meat are major food sources, society frequently questions the production methods (the research performed on these animals) and the safety of these products. Thus, there seems to be a widening gap between the pig and chicken production sectors and society. MonoGutHealth engages in a dialogue with society using different media channels to bridge the gap between citizens/consumers, livestock scientists, and stakeholders from the pig and chicken production sector. To this end, ESRs share their experience during their training, openly discuss the issues modern monogastric production faces, and show how their project within MonoGutHealth contributes to solutions for these issues.