Increased protein fermentation in the caecum and colon indicates poor ileal protein digestibility and produces harmful metabolites. Whenever there are negative performance effects with a new diet component, the quantification of protein fermentation biomarkers reveals whether the issue is connected to poor protein digestion.
Butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) of 4-carbon atoms, is generally considered to be the preferred energy source of epithelial cells in the large intestine. Once produced by bacterial metabolism in the intestinal lumen, much of the butyrate is absorbed, to benefit the host animal’s energy status.
When studying intestinal processes and microbe-mediated gut health, the first step is collection of digesta and/or feces specimens. Standardised sample collection and easy-to-use materials are critical when streamlining the sampling process, to generate reliable scientific data. Immediate freezing of samples is regarded as the gold standard of intestinal sample storage, although freezing and thawing may lead to bacterial lysis and some loss of DNA.
The suggestion of reverse peristalsis from caecum to small intestine has puzzled researchers at Alimetrics for a long time, since it is strongly contradictory to our general findings in analyses of bacteria and their metabolites along the intestinal tract of broiler chickens and the fundamental differences between intestinal segments. If reverse peristalsis were frequent and powerful, these characteristic features of different intestinal segments regarding biomarkers and dietary nutrients could not exist.
On Wednesday, August 19th at 15:00 (CET) Alimetrics organises a 45 min webinar in which Ph.D. Teemu Rinttilä presents how a combination of DNA-based methods reveals links between intestinal microbiota and animal performance.
The family Erysipelotrichaceae, which is probably quite unknown to most, is an emerging group of bacteria in the phylum Firmicutes, which contains species originally classified into Clostridial subphylum clusters XVI & XVIII. In the cecum of broiler chickens, Erysipelotrichaceae is considered to be part of the core microbiota, comprising a high percentage of total microbiota.
