Abstract
Feeding low-protein (LP) diets with essential amino acids could be an effective strategy for ruminants from economic, health and environmental perspectives. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of rumen-protected methionine and lysine (RML) in the LP diet on growth performance, innate immunity, and gut health of growing lambs. After 15 days of adaption, sixty-three male Hulunbuir lambs aged approximately 4 months were allotted to three dietary groups and each group had three pens with seven lambs for 60 days. The dietary treatments were as follows: a normal protein diet (14.5% CP, positive control; NP), LP diet (12.5% CP, negative control; LP), and LP diet with RML (12.5% CP, LP + RML). Lambs fed with LP + RML diet showed improved villus architecture and gut barrier function than those fed with the other two diets. The mRNA expressions of interleukin-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α, interferon-γ, toll-like receptor-4, and myeloid differentiation primary response 88 were downregulated in most regions of the intestinal segments by feeding the LP + RML diet. Compared with the NP diet, feeding lambs with the LP diet increased the abundance of Candidatus_Saccharimonas in all regions of the intestinal tract and reversed by feeding the LP + RML diet. Lambs in the LP + RML diet group had lower abundance of Erysipelotrichaceae_UCG-009 and Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 than those in the LP diet group. The results showed that supplementing RML in the LP diet exhibited beneficial effects on host immune function, intestinal mucosal integrity, and microbiota composition.
Key points
• Adding methionine and lysine in a low-protein diet improve the intestinal mucosal growth and integrity.
• Feeding a low-protein diet with methionine and lysine enhance the innate immune status.
• Adding methionine and lysine in a low-protein diet alter the intestinal microbiota composition.
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Data availability
The 16S rRNA gene sequencing data for all samples were submitted to the National Center for Biotechnology Information Sequence Read Archive under the accession number PRJNA733295. For the other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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This study was funded by Chinese Academy of Sciences (Strategic Priority Research Program Grant NO. XDA26040304, XDA26050102), CAS Science and Technology Service Network Initiative (KFJ-STS-ZDTP-075), and Innovation Province Project (2019RS3021).
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KG: conceptualization, Methodology, Data acquisition, Data analysis, and writing—original draft; YC: data acquisition; ZH: conceptualization, methodology, project administration, supervision, review, and editing; ZT: conceptualization, methodology, and project administration.
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Gebeyew, K., Yang, C., He, Z. et al. Low-protein diets supplemented with methionine and lysine alter the gut microbiota composition and improve the immune status of growing lambs. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 105, 8393–8410 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11620-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11620-4