Metabolomic characterization of xenobiotic and nutrient metabolism events in pigs from dietary additives

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Dietary additives could benefit humans and production animals through their nutritional and non-nutritional functions. Diverse chemical and metabolic events in diet, digestive tract, and the post-absorption system could determine the efficacy of dietary additives. This dissertation investigated these events through metabolomics-based profiling and fingerprinting on three types of dietary additives, revealing chemical interactions of additives with food and feed, the disposition of additives in the gastrointestinal tract, and the metabolic influences of additives on the metabolism system and gut microbiome. The results provide useful insights on the mechanism of action as well as the biological and physiological consequences of consuming dietary additives. The values of the nutritional metabolomics approach as an effective tool for studying dietary additives are also highlighted by this dissertation research. In the first chapter, bisulfite-based mitigation of deoxynivalenol (DON), a highly reactive epoxy-sesquiterpenoid mycotoxin commonly present in cereal grains which are commonly used as animal feed ingredients, was evaluated. Dietary DON contamination negatively affects feed intake, growth, and health status in all stages of swine production. Both in vivo biotransformation, including somatic xenobiotic metabolism and microbial metabolism, and ex vivo chemical mitigation reactions, such as bisulfite-based sulfonation, have been shown to reduce the reactivity and bioavailability of DON in pigs. However, the influences of age and maturation on the disposition of DON and its chemical mitigation in pigs have not been examined previously. In this chapter, three animal studies were conducted: first, a comparison on the influence of age through two separate trials on nursery and finishing pigs, and then a follow up study on investigating the mass balance. The results revealed extensive interactions among maturation, DON disposition, and sulfonation treatment in pigs, and warrant further investigations to establish the reference values on the age of pigs, the level of DON contamination, and the dose of bisulfite agents to guide the mitigation practices in swine production. In the second chapter, the feasibility and efficacy of bile as a potential growth-promoting feed additive for nursery pigs was examined through chemometric characterization of bile from gilts, barrows, and sows to first evaluate the best choice for further study. There was particular interest in the HDCA content of the bile sources profiled based on previous studies in the literature connecting HDCA with response from antibiotic treatment. In the current study, the most HDCA-rich source was sow bile, which was collected for a feasibility trial to assess if nursery pigs would be receptive to its inclusion in their diets, as well as a long-term growth performance trial to understand the potential effects after feeding. The major findings from the studies include that nursery pigs are receptive to consuming up to 0.75% bile in their diets and that long-term feeding of bile acids can reduce the endogenous production of bile in nursery animals. The objective of the third study was to measure growth performance of nursery pigs fed three dietary concentrations of novel product containing extracted hydroxycinnamic acids and their oligomers and comparing these to a commercially available source of polyphenols. Overall, feeding the HCA supplemented diets had no significant effect on growth rate, feed intake, and gain efficiency regardless of dosage rate. Further, there were limited effects form feeding the HCA diets on the digesta and hepatic metabolome. The results from this evaluation indicate that HCA supplementation in weaned pig diets may have limited benefits for healthy nursery pigs in a clean environment, which represented the experimental conditions of this study. It is also important to note that dietary supplementation of a commercial polyphenolic-based feed additive at the recommended dosage provided no improvement in growth performance or metabolome response. Future studies are needed to evaluate if supplementing weaned pig diets with the HCA extract could improve the performance of the nursery pigs under health challenges and environmental stresses.

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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. 2025. Major: Nutrition. Advisor: Chi Chen. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 200 pages.

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Mosher, Wesley. (2025). Metabolomic characterization of xenobiotic and nutrient metabolism events in pigs from dietary additives. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/271674.

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