Changes in Faecal Short-Chain Fatty Acid Concentrations in Pigs Infected With Lawsonia intracellularis

摘要

Proliferative enteropathy (PE) or ileitis is a common production limiting disease, causing weight loss and diarrhoea in pigs from weaning onwards. Lawsonia intracellularis (LI), the aetiologic agent of PE, causes abnormal proliferation of immature ileal crypt cells. Pigs clinically affected with PE have reduced digestive enzyme activity in the ileum (Collins et al., 2009), which impacts on nutrient absorption. Undigested carbohydrates and amino acids in the large intestine are fermented by the resident microflora to produce short-chain and branched chain fatty acids (MacFarlane and MacFarlane, 2003). The hypothesis of this experiment was that faecal short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations would be significantly different between uninfected andLI infected pigs.