Effects of dietary 25-hydroxyvitamin D₃ supplementation on growth performance, immune function and antioxidative capacity in weaned piglets

ABSTRACT

The study evaluated the effects of different doses of 25-hydroxyvitamin D₃ (25(OH)D₃) on growth performance, immune function and antioxidative capacity in piglets. In a 21-d trial, 35 weaned pigs were divided into five groups and diets were supplemented with 5.5 (control), 43.0, 80.5, 118.0 and 155.5 μg 25(OH)D₃/kg, respectively. No treatment effects were observed for average daily gain, average daily feed intake and feed to gain ratio. Increasing dietary 25(OH)D₃ levels increased serum 25(OH)D₃ concentrations linearly (p < 0.01), decreased the frequency of CD3+CD4+ and CD3+CD8+ T cells (p < 0.01), and the serum level of complement component 3 (p < 0.05). Supplementation of 80.5 and 118.0 μg 25(OH)D₃/kg enhanced the activity of serum glutathione peroxidase (p < 0.05) and addition of 43.0 μg 25(OH)D₃/kg increased the malondialdehyde concentration (p < 0.05). Overall, feeding high-dose 25(OH)D₃ to weaned pigs partly improved immune functions and the antioxidative capacity.

KEYWORDS:

• 25-hydroxyvitamin D₃
• antioxidant properties
• immunity
• performance
• piglets

Acknowledgments

We sincerely acknowledge the assistance of Aimin Wu, Tingting Fang, Runqi Fu, Huifen Wang and Keming Le for their assistance during the animal experiments and laboratory analyses.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no competing interest in the present work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Support Program of Sichuan Province under Grant [2016NZ0006] and The National Project for Agricultural Technology System under Grant [No. CARS-35].