Effects of Dietary Addition of p-Glucan on Pigs Infected with Salmonella Typhimurium

Although, the antimicrobial effects of [3-Glucan (BG) have been described previously, the use of [3-glucan in food animal production has been unrealistic due to high production costs. Recently, pure [3-glucan could be efficiently produced by cultivating mutant Aureobasidium puttans which contains a disrupted pul gene and the new method can simplify purification process and reduce mass production costs. Thus, the effect of the [3-glucan purified from mutant A. puttans on salmonella infection in weaned pigs was evaluated in the study. Twenty, 4 weeks old pigs were randomly assigned to the following 4 groups: BG or BG-X group was provided with commercial feeds containing [3-glucan (10 mg kg-¹) or containing both [3-glucan (10 mg kg-¹) and Genkwadaphnin (10 mg kg-¹), respectively; Normal Feed (NF) and Negative control (Neg.) groups were only provided with commercial feeds only. All the groups were provided with their specific diets for 2 weeks, challenged with Salmonella Typhimurium at 10⁸ Colony Forming Units (CFU)/mL except for the Neg. group and sacrificed for pathological evaluation at 4 weeks after the challenge. As compared with the NF group, BG and BG-X groups showed significantly lower diarrhea incidence and salmonella shedding in feces and gained more weight after salmonella infection. Gross lesions were less severe in BG and BG-X groups but the differences reached no statistical significance. In conclusion this study demonstrated that the overall performance of weaned pigs fed [3-glucan derived from A. pullan was enhanced upon challenge with salmonella by increasing weight gains and reducing both the incidence of diarrhea and fecal shedding of salmonella.