Functions of microbiota in monogastric gastrointestinal tract and new practices in animal production.

摘要

The mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract harbors a complex micro-ecosystem consisting of countless bacteria. As an essential 'organ', the gut microbiota plays an important role in host nutrition and health by promoting supply, digestion and absorption of nutrient, preventing pathogen's colonization, and shaping and maintaining normal mucosal immunity. Antibiotics used as dietary additive not only interrupt the commensal microbiota in animal GI tract, but also lead to microbial resistance and antibiotics residues in animal products, which has become a worldwide problem to the health of human being and animals. So antibiotics have been banned as feed additives in many countries. Therefore, animal nutritionists and feed manufacturers are becoming increasingly interested in the topic. This paper mainly focuses on the development and important functions of microbes in monogastric GI tract as well as the factors affecting them. Applications of some novel alternatives in practice to keep GI tract ecosystem healthy, such as probiotics, prebiotics, Chinese herbal additives and exogenous enzymes, and their mechanisms were also introduced. The new alternatives to keep health of GI tract have great ecological, environmental issues and economic social effects. It may lead to the rational design of supplementation for animal production to study the functions of the microbiota, which has profound implications to support continuous development in livestock production in the future.