Problem of food safety is causing global attention increasingly, let alone the pork most of us eat every day. With the ban of antibiotics in European Union, the voice of restricting the use of antibiotics during raising pork is very loud, thus finding the right antibiotic alternatives become a hot issue in scientific research.

Recently Dr TANG Xiangshan of professor YIN Yulong’s group in Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences(ISA) carried out a research which aimed at investigating the possibility for using recombinant bovine lactoferrampin–lactoferricin (LL) instead of partly antibiotics in weaned piglets.

Bovine lactoferrampin and bovine lactoferricin are two antimicrobial peptides located in the N1-domain of bovine lactoferrin. The bactericidal activity of the fused peptide LL is stronger than that of either lactoferrampin or lactoferricin.

Researchers found that the fused peptide LL was expressed in Pichia pastoris and then added to the diet for piglets with an average live body weight of 5.9 kg ± 0.5 kg. Compared with the negative control group, dietary supplementation with recombinant LL or chlortetracycline increased the body weight and daily weight gain, and decreased the feed to gain ratio, diarrhea rate, and serum IgM and IgG levels. The serum levels of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, diamine oxidase, and endothelin-1 were not significantly different among all treatment groups. Namely, diery supplementation with LL or chlortetracycline improves the groeth performance and feed conversion as well as decreases the diarrhea rate of weaned piglets.

The results indicate that LL and chlortetracycline have similar effects on piglets which weaned at 21 days of age. The recombinant LL can be an effective antibiotic alternatives and is expected to have practical applications in the livestock industry.

This work was recently published on Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances 2012 Volume 11. To download the paper, go to http://medwelljournals.com/abstract/?doi=javaa.2012.2548.2555. This work was jointly supported by National “863” Program of China (2008AA10Z316), Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-EW-G-16 and KZCX2-EW-QN411).