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This study was conducted to investigate the effect of cooling systems on reproductive performance, body temperature, blood metabolites, and the intestinal microbiome in early gestating sows exposed to high ambient temperature. In total, 39 pregnant sows (Landrace × Yorkshire; 2 parities) were randomly assigned to and maintained in the following three treatment groups (13 sows per group) over days 0 to 35 of pregnancy: (i) air cooling (AC; 26.87 ± 1.23°C), (ii) water-drip cooling (WC; 28.81 ± 0.91°C), and (iii) a lack of cooling with heat stress (HS; 30.72 ± 0.70°C). Backfat thickness was measured before and after HS. Feces were collected on day 0 and 35 d of the trial for microbiome analysis, whereas blood was taken at day 35 of pregnancy and analyzed. Reproductive performance and physiological responses were identified at day 35. Respiration rate along with rectal and skin temperatures were lower (p < 0.05) in the AC group than in the HS and WC groups. Serum blood urea nitrogen values were increased (p < 0.05) in the WC group compared with those measured in the AC and HS groups. Triiodothyronine was found at greater levels (p < 0.05) in the AC than in the HS group. Reproductive performance was not affected by the cooling systems. At the phylum level, fecal pathogenic Spirochaete and Euryarchaeota were found in higher numbers (p < 0.05) in all groups after HS. Similarly, at the genus level, the amount of Treponema was greater (p < 0.05) in all groups after HS. In conclusion, our results suggest that AC or WC can ameliorate or mitigate the adverse effects of HS on the physiological parameters of pregnant sows reared under high temperatures.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of group-housing facility (GHF), compared to an individual confinement stall (CON), on the reproductive performance, behavior, and stress hormones of gestating sows. A total of 50 primiparous sows (Landrace × Yorkshire) were randomly allocated into either CON (n = 25) or GHF (n = 25) during the gestation period. One week before parturition, the sows were transferred into conventional farrowing crates, and cross-fostering was conducted within 1 d of delivery. Blood was collected for analyses of stress indices at 75 d of gestation and postpartum. Reproductive performance was estimated during the period of birth to weaning. Behavior patterns were identified at 90 d of gestation. Litter size was not different between the CON and GHF treatments. Weaning to estrus interval, however, tended to be lower in the GHF than in the CON (p < 0.1). Activity, treating, belly nosing, and exploring behaviors were observed only in the GHF group, whereas rubbing was shown only with the CON. Serum cortisol concentration was lower in the GHF than in the CON at 75 d of gestation (p < 0.05). Sows housed in the GHF showed lower epinephrine and norepinephrine concentrations than those housed in the CON at postpartum (p < 0.05). The GHF sows demonstrated more natural behavior characteristics associated with stress relief than the CON sows with no adverse effects on reproductive performance. Therefore, these results suggest that GHF could be applied as an alternative housing facility to improve animal welfare on swine farms.

The present study investigated the effects of loose farrowing type during gestation and after farrowing on reproductive performance and of lactating sows. A total of 22 primiparous sows (Landrace; average initial body weights [BW], 228.54 ± 12.79 kg) were allotted to one of two treatments on the basis of body weight. Sows were divided into two experimental groups, conventional farrowing crates (CON), and loosed-farrowing pens (LFP). The experiment duration was around 38 days ranging from 10 days before parturition to 28 days after parturition. Gestating sows at the age of 105 d were placed in gestational stalls (group housing). All the sows were fed a common diet according to the National Research Council requirements for lactation. Cross-fostering was performed within 1 day of parturition. From 1 day after weaning, estrus detection was performed twice-daily (0900 and 1730 h) for 10 min by boar exposure. There were significant effects of LFP housing type on the farrowing duration, and farrowing interval. At the farrowing time, none of the litter parameters including total born, stillborn, mummy, born alive piglets and total litter weight and piglet weight were affected. There were no effects of housing type on the mortality of piglets at d 1, 3, 7, 21, and 28. In conclusion, the result of this study showed that there is no performance difference between the crated or LFP sows, which indicate that the LFP housing has the potential to be used as an alternative to the crated house without any detrimental effects in reproduction performance of lactating sows.

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary mixture of protease and probiotics on growth performance, blood constituents, and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs. A total of 48 growing pigs were randomly allotted into 2 dietary (6 pigs/pen; 4 replicates/treatment). The treatments were a diet based on corn and soybean meal (CON) and CON supplemented with 0.01% of dietary mixture of protease and probiotics (MULTI). No differences were found on growth performance (average daily gain, ADG; overall, 874.06 vs. 881.14 g/d; p > 0.05), blood constituents (white blood cell, WBC; phase I, 17.51 vs. 19.96 × 103 /μL; phase II, 19.65 vs. 21.95 × 103 /μL; p > 0.05), and carcass characteristics during overall experimental period between CON and MULTI. In conclusion, the addition of dietary mix-ture of protease and probiotics in growing-finishing pig diet did not have any beneficial effects.

Colibacillosis is one of the major health problems in young piglets resulting in poor health and death caused by Escherichia coli producing F18 pili and Shiga toxin 2e. It is pivotal to reduce colibacillosis in weaned piglets to enhance production performance. In this study, we evaluated synbiotics as the gut health improvement agents in the mouse model challenged with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) isolated from piglets. Prebiotic lactulose was formulated with each 5.0 × 106 CFU/mL of Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15, Lactobacillus plantarum GB-U17, and Lactobacillus plantarum GB 1-3 to produce 3 combinations of synbiotics. A total of 40 three weeks old BALB/c mice were randomly assigned to 4 groups (n = 10): a control group and 3 synbiotics treated groups. Each treatment groups were daily administrated with 5.0 × 106 CFU/mL of one synbiotics for the first week, and every 3 days during the second week. All the mice were challenged with 8.0 × 108 CFU/mL of STEC 5 days after animals began to receive synbiotics. Mice treated with synbiotics based on Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15 and Lactobacillus plantarum GB-U17 significantly improved daily weight gain compared to mice in other groups. While mice treated with GB-U15 showed better fecal index, no significant differences were observed among groups. Gross lesion and histopathological evaluations showed that mice treated with GB-U15 moderately improved recovery from STEC infection. In conclusion, our results suggest that the synbiotics formulated with lactulose and Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15 have potential benefits to prevent and improve colibacillosis in weaned piglets.

This study was conducted to provide commercial pig farms with information about group housing systems for sows in accordance with the amendment of the prohibition law for individual stalls for sows in South Korea. Therefore, this experiment was performed to compare the effects of individual stalls (IS) and group housing systems (GS) on the productivity of sows to investigate the feasibility of replacing individual stalls with group housing systems in commercial sow units. Forty primiparous sows (Landrace &times, Yorkshire, 210.67 &plusmn, 2.22 kg average initial body weight) were randomly assigned to four treatments with restricted feeding after 8 weeks from artificial insemination. The four treatments were (i) individual stalls (IS, housed in pen stalls), (ii) short stalls (SS, sows housed in pens with non-gated feeding stalls), (iii) free access stalls (FAS, a non-competitive housing system), and (iv) electronic sow feeders (ESF, used with radio frequency identification technology to allow individual sow management without individual confinement). All sows were transferred to farrowing crates at 110 days of gestation. There were no differences in sow productive performance, reproductive performance, and colostrum composition between IS and GS and among GS. The considered GS did not negatively affect any productivity parameters of primiparous sows compared with IS, the GS could replace IS in commercial sow units.

OBJECTIVE O-linked N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) transferase (OGT) catalyzes the addition of O-GlcNAc and GlcNAcylation has extensive crosstalk with phosphorylation to regulate signaling and transcription. Pig OGT is located near the region of chromosome X that affects follicle stimulating hormone level and testes size. The objective of this study was to find the variations of OGT between European and Chinese pigs. METHODS Pigs were tested initially for polymorphism in OGT among European and Chinese pigs by polymerase chain reaction and sequencing at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC). The polymorphism was also determined in an independent population of pigs including European and Chinese Meishan (ME) breeds at the National Institute of Animal Science (NIAS, RDA, Korea). RESULTS The intron 20 of OGT from European and Chinese pigs was 514 and 233 bp, respectively, in the pigs tested initially. They included 1 White composite (WC) boar and 7 sows (2 Minzu×WC, 2 Duroc [DU]×WC, 2 ME×WC, 1 Fengzing×WC) at USMARC. The 281-bp difference was due to an inserted 276-bp element and GACTT in European pigs. When additional WC and ME boars, the grandparents that were used to generate the 1/2ME×1/2WC parents, and the 84 boars of 16 litters from mating of 1/2ME×1/2WC parents were analyzed, the breeds of origin of X chromosome quantitative trait locus (QTL) were confirmed. The polymorphism was determined in an independent population of pigs including DU, Landrace, Yorkshire, and ME breeds at NIAS. OGT was placed at position 67 cM on the chromosome X of the USMARC swine linkage map. CONCLUSION There was complete concordance with the insertion in European pigs at USMARC and NIAS. This polymorphism could be a useful marker to identify the breed of origin of X chromosome QTL in pigs produced by crossbreeding Chinese and European pigs.

본 연구는 자동혈구분석기 Hemavet 950FS를 이용한 돼지 혈액 내 혈구분석의 유효성을 검증하고, 정확한 분석을 위한 유효시간을 결정하기 위하여 실시하였다. 분석시료는 체중 60 kg ( ${\pm}3.5$ )의 Duroc 종 34두로부터 채취하였으며, 이들 중에서 분석치가 정상범위를 벗어나거나 용혈이 발견된 시료는 연구에서 제...

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary protease on growth performance, blood constituents, and carcass characteristics of growing-finishing pigs. A total of 48 growing pigs (initial body weight, 34.8 ± 0.62 kg) were randomly assigned to 2 dietary treatments (6 pigs/pen; 4 replicates/treatment). The treatments were a diet based on corn and soybean meal (CON) and CON supplemented with 0.01 % of protease (PRO). Pigs were fed respective dietary treatments with a 2-phase feeding program for 12 weeks. Pigs fed PRO had higher average daily gain (ADG; phase I, 866.38 vs. 821.75 g/d; overall, 910.96 vs. 866.30 g/d; p < 0.05) and gain to feed ratio (G:F; phase I, 0.345 vs. 0.363 g/g; p < 0.05) than those fed CON. However, there were no differences on blood constituents and carcass characteristics between CON and PRO of growing-finishing pigs. In conclusion, dietary protease supplementation in the typical diet for growing-finishing pigs improved growth rate.

The gut microbiome has long been known to play fundamentally important roles in the animal health and the well-being of its host. As such, the establishment and maintenance of a beneficial gut microbiota early in life is crucial in pigs, since early gut colonizers are pivotal in the establishment of permanent microbial community structures affecting the health and growth performance of pigs later in life. Emphasizing this importance of early gut colonizers, it is critical to understand the factors impacting the establishment of the piglet gut microbiome at weaning. Factors include, among others, diet, in-feed antibiotics, probiotics and prebiotic administration. The impact of these factors on establishment of the gut microbiome of piglets at weaning includes effects on piglet gut microbial diversity, structure, and succession. In this review, we thoroughly reviewed the most recent findings on the piglet gut microbiome shifts as influenced by weaning, and how these microbiome changes brought about by various factors that have been shown to affect the development of microbiota in piglets. This review will provide a general overview of recent studies that can help to facilitate the design of new strategies to modulate the gut microbiome in order to enhance gastrointestinal health, growth performance and well-being of piglets.

The data of Duroc swine species that were born from 2000 to 2014 excluding missing ones collected by Korea National Institute of Animal Science were used in the present study. After removing missing data we used 9756 of productions data and 1728 of reproductive reference of breeding research to study the level of inbreeding and to investigate the impact on the reproductive traits, production traits. The correlation of reproductive traits and inbreeding coefficient are -0.07, -0.08 for total number pigs born, number of pigs born alive respectively and birth weight per litter is -0.10, number of pigs born alive per litter to 21days is -0.06 and body weight per litter to 21days is -0.09. The correlation coefficients of the inbreeding coefficients of reproductive traits are shown within 10% with negative correlation (P ＜ 0.05). Days of 90㎏ and Backfat in the correlation coefficient and inbreeding coefficient production traits were not observed significant correlations, Average daily gain was investigated by the positive correlation of 0.05. According to the above results, the inbreeding level gave a negative effect on the improvement of the breed traits, investigating a relatively high compared to a negative effect on other traits. But overall correlation degree is less than 10% was observed. This inbreeding coefficient has not been clearly observed due to degeneration of the average inbreeding coefficients of these generations was maintained within 10% of the population. The scale of the experimental group was about 150 degree pig husbandry is very small compared to the advanced countries. However, the level of inbreeding in the population group with the appropriate mating combinations is maintained below 10% of population is thought to be small and can minimize the effects of inbreeding degeneration. further testing utilizing this selection is constantly considered to be necessary.

Pigs have been one of the most important sources of meat for humans, and their productivity has been substantially improved by recent strong selection. Here, we present whole-genome resequencing analyses of 55 pigs of five breeds representing Korean native pigs, wild boar and three European origin breeds. 1,673.1 Gb of sequence reads were mapped to the Swine reference assembly, covering ∼99.2% of the reference genome, at an average of ∼11.7-fold coverage. We detected 20,123,573 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), of which 25.5% were novel. We extracted 35,458 of non-synonymous SNPs in 9,904 genes, which may contribute to traits of interest. The whole SNP sets were further used to access the population structures of the breeds, using multiple methodologies, including phylogenetic, similarity matrix, and population structure analysis. They showed clear population clusters with respect to each breed. Furthermore, we scanned the whole genomes to identify signatures of selection throughout the genome. The result revealed several promising loci that might underlie economically important traits in pigs, such as the CLDN1 and TWIST1 genes. These discoveries provide useful genomic information for further study of the discrete genetic mechanisms associated with economically important traits in pigs.

The past decades have been a golden era during which great tasks were accomplished in the field of microbiology, including food microbiology. In the past, culture-dependent methods have been the primary choice to investigate bacterial diversity. However, using culture-independent high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes has greatly facilitated studies exploring the microbial compositions and dynamics associated with health and diseases. These culture-independent DNA-based studies generate large-scale data sets that describe the microbial composition of a certain niche. Consequently, understanding microbial diversity becomes of greater importance when investigating the composition, function, and dynamics of the microbiota associated with health and diseases. Even though there is no general agreement on which diversity index is the best to use, diversity indices have been used to compare the diversity among samples and between treatments with controls. Tools such as the Shannon- Weaver index and Simpson index can be used to describe population diversity in samples. The purpose of this review is to explain the principles of diversity indices, such as Shannon- Weaver and Simpson, to aid general microbiologists in better understanding bacterial communities. In this review, important questions concerning microbial diversity are addressed. Information from this review should facilitate evidence-based strategies to explore microbial communities.

The effects of corn particle size on nutrient digestibility and energy utilization in pigs were determined under optimal (experiment 1, 25 ± 1 °C) or heat stress (experiment 2, 37 ± 1 °C) conditions. In Exp. 1 and 2, five experimental diets were tested using a 5 × 5 Latin square design involving five barrows (Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc, average initial body weight of 30 ± 1 kg and 45.0 ± 1.8 kg, respectively, in individual metabolic cages). Dietary treatments were as follows: 200-, 300-, 400-, 600-, 800-μm corn particle sizes obtained by mesh screens. Under optimal thermal conditions, digestibility of dry matter (DM) and crude fiber (CF) from 200-μm diet was higher (P

Background The Korean native pig (KNP) is generally thought to have come from northern China to the Korean peninsula approximately 2000 years ago. KNP pigs were at the brink of extinction in the 1980s, since then efforts have been made to restore the breed by bringing together the remaining stocks in South Korea. As a result, KNP was registered as a breed in 2006. To find additional breed-specific markers that are distinct among pig breeds, variations in O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) were investigated. OGT is located on chromosome X and catalyzes the post-translational addition of a single O-linked-β-N-acetylglucosamine to target proteins. Findings Length polymorphism in the intron 20 of OGT was identified. The intron 20 of OGT from Duroc, Landrace, and Yorkshire breeds was 281-bp longer than that from either KNP or Chinese Meishan pigs. The difference between the Western pig breeds (BB genotype) and KNP or Meishan pigs (AA genotype) was due to an inserted 276-bp element and the 5-bp ACTTG. Conclusions The polymorphism in OGT identified in this study may be used as an additional marker for determining the breed of origin among Meishan and the Western pig breeds. The length polymorphism suggests that the locus near OGT is not fixed in KNP. This marker would be relevant in determining the breed of origin in crossbred pigs between KNP pigs with known genotypes and the Western pig breeds with BB genotypes, thus confirming the contribution of the X chromosome from each breed.