J. Anim Sci.
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Published online first on May 15, 2007
J. Anim Sci. 1990. doi:10.2527/jas.2006-754
© 2007 American Society of Animal Science
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J. Anim Sci., doi: 10.2527/jas.2006-754
©Copyright, 2007, The American Society of Animal Science

ARTICLE

Effect of dietary lactoferrin on the immune functions and serum iron level of weanling piglets

T. Shan 1, Y. Wang 1*, Y. Wang 1, J. Liu 1, Z. Xu 1

1 Institute of Feed Science, Zhejiang University, The Key Laboratory of Molecular Animal Nutrition, Ministry of Education, No. 164 Qiutao North Road, Hangzhou 310029, P. R. China

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yzwang{at}zju.edu.cn.


  Abstract

A total of 90 weanling female pigs (DurocxLandracexYorkshire) were used in a 30-d growth experiment to investigate the effect of lactoferrin (LF) on growth performance, immune function, and serum iron concentrations. The pigs were allocated on the basis of BW and litter to 3 dietary treatments in a randomized complete block design. The dietary treatments were: control group (basal diet), antibiotics group (basal diet + 20 mg/kg flavomycin + 110 mg/kg aureomycin), and LF group (basal diet + 1.0 g/kg lactoferrin). There were 3 replicate pens per treatment and pigs were grouped with 10 pigs per pen. Six pigs, randomly selected from each treatment (2 pigs/pen) were slaughtered for serum and spleen samples on d 15 and 30. Supplementation with LF improved the phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulated peripheral lymphocyte proliferation by 36% (P < 0.01), increased concanavalin A (ConA) and PHA-induced spleen lymphocyte proliferation by 332% (P < 0.01) and 258% (P < 0.01), enhanced serum IgG by 20% (P < 0.05), IgA by 13% (P < 0.05) and IgM by 15% (P < 0.05), C4 by 29% (P < 0.05), IL-2 by 12% (P < 0.01), serum iron values by 22% (P < 0.05), respectively, on d 15 compared with the control. Lactoferrin supplementation increased PHA-stimulated lymphocyte proliferation (P < 0.01), serum IgG by 16% (P < 0.05), IgA by 17% (P < 0.05), C4 by 11% (P < 0.05), IL-2 by 14% (P < 0.05), serum iron values by 23% (P < 0.01), and decreased the diarrhea ratio (P < 0.05) relative to the control on d 30. Compared with the controls, supplementation with antibiotic increased both ConA- and PHA-induced spleen lymphocyte proliferation (P < 0.05) on d 15, decreased the diarrhea ratio (P < 0.05), and increased the PHA-induced spleen lymphocyte proliferation (P < 0.05) and serum iron values (P < 0.01) on d 30. These results support the possible use lactoferrin as an immunostimulant to improve immune functions and strengthen host defenses and would be a good method for defending weanling piglets from infections and weanling stress.

Key Words: Growth performance, immune function, lactoferrin, serum iron, weanling piglet






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