Dietary supplement of sodium butyrate improves the growth performance and intestinal health by targeting Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in rabbits

Abstract

Supplementation of sodium butyrate (SB) has been proved to be beneficial for improving the growth performance and health of animals, but its effects on rabbits have not been well understood. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of SB supplementation on growth performance, meat quality, and intestinal health of rabbits by evaluating feed intake and efficiency, diarrhea index, blood and cecum metabolites, cecal pH and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), histological staining, nutritional composition of meat, and gene expression profile of cecum. A total of 14 weaned male New Zealand White rabbits (35 ± 2 days, 1.70 ± 0.09 kg) were randomly divided into two groups: rabbits in Control group were fed normally with the basal diet, and rabbits in Butyrate group were supplemented with 0.75 g/kg SB on the basis of the basal diet. After a 1-week acclimatization period, the formal trial lasted for 10 weeks. Results suggest that dietary SB reduced the feed conversion ratio and diarrhea index of rabbits (p < 0.05). SB treatment significantly increased serum glutamyl transpeptidase, total bile acid, total cholesterol, triglyceride, and glucose levels and decreased tCO₂ content relative to the Control group (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, crude ash content in rabbits' meat was significantly increased by SB treatment (p < 0.05). Furthermore, SB treatment significantly increased the integrity of epithelial villi and number of goblet cells in the cecum and decreased cecal pH compared with the Control group. Dietary SB also upregulated levels of Na⁺-K⁺ ATPase, Ca²⁺-Mg²⁺ ATPase, total superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase in cecum. SCFAs analysis revealed that dietary supplementation with SB increases butyric acid in the cecum contents. Furthermore, SB supplementation is demonstrated to stimulate the proliferation and migration of cecal epithelial cells through activating Wnt/β-catenin pathways in rabbits both in vitro and in vivo by using transcriptome sequencing and gene function verification technologies. Taken together, our findings provide a theoretical basis for the application of SB as an alternative to antibiotics in livestock production.

Keywords

cecal epithelial cells / growth performance / intestinal health / meat quality / sodium butyrate

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