Effects of creep feeding and supplemental glutamine or glutamine plus glutamate (Aminogut) on pre- and post-weaning growth performance and intestinal health of piglets

Table 5 Intestinal morphology, PCNA staining, and maltase activity, and serum xylose and mannitol following oral gavage of pigs 1-wk post-weaning

Variables	NC-CD¹	NC-GLN	NC-AG	CFCD-CD	CFCD-GLN	CFCD-AG	CFGLN-GLN	CFAG-AG	Sow Reared	SEM	P value
No. pigs	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	-	-
Age pigs, d	28	28	28	28	28	28	28	28	28	-	-
Body wt, kg²	6.5	6.7	6.2	5.8	6.4	6.4	6.5	6.5	6.3	0.28	0.824
Villi height, μm	508^ab	515^ab	510^ab	560^ab	576^a	480^b	568^a	560^ab	570^a	23	0.049
Villi width, μm	136	140	120	133	148	158	145	147	132	8.9	0.301
Crypt depth, μm	202^ab	188^b	177^b	192^ab	218^ab	242^ab	225^ab	258^a	118^c	14	0.001
PCNA, cells	56^c	81^a	67^b	71^ab	86^a	70^ab	80^a	64^b	91^a	5.5	0.001
Xylose, mg/dl	14.6^b	13.5^b	11.1^b	14.4^b	9.5^b	14.1^b	15.4^b	13.7^b	42.8^a	1.94	0.001
Mannitol, mg/dl	1.8^b	1.5^b	2.3^b	1.9^b	2.8^b	3.0^b	2.8^b	3.0^b	17.7^a	0.68	0.001
Maltase, μmol/(min. g protein)	256	183	201	299	282	254	244	242	239	32	0.189

¹NC-CD No Creep Control Diet, NC-GLN No Creep Glutamine, NC-AG No Creep AminoGut, CFCD-CD Creep Fed Control Diet-Control Diet.
CFCD-GLN Creep Fed Control Diet-Glutamine, CFCD-AG Creep Fed Control Diet-AminoGut, CFGLN-GLN Creep Fed Glutamine-Glutamine.
CFAG-AG Creep Fed AminoGut-AminoGut. Sow Reared were pigs kept with the sow until they were 28 d of age. See Figure 1.
² Body weight was taken one week post-placement in the nursery. Sow reared pigs stayed with their dams for 28 d.
^abc Least square means within a row lacking a common superscript are different (P < 0.05).

ISSN: 2049-1891