Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (7): 2228-2238.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2022.07.019

• ANIMAL NUTRITION AND FEEDS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Time-restricted Feeding on the Growth Performance and Liver Metabolism of Pigs

XIA Pengke, WANG Hongyu, ZHANG He, SU Yong*, ZHU Weiyun   

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
  • Received:2021-09-16 Online:2022-07-23 Published:2022-07-23

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of time-restricted feeding on the growth performance and liver transcriptional and metabolomic profiles of growing pigs. A total of 12 healthy growing Duroc×Landrace×Large White pigs with similar body weight ((56.29±1.93) kg) were selected in the present study and were randomly divided into the control group (CON) and time-restricted feeding group (TRF), each group had six replicates with one pig per replicate (pen). Pigs in the CON group had free access to feed throughout the whole experimental period. While pigs in the TRF group were fed three times per day at 7:00, 12:00, and 17:00, respectively, each feeding time lasted for an hour, and pigs were fed ad libitum during the feeding time. During the 21 d-experiment, feed intake of the pigs was recorded daily. Pigs were weighed weekly to calculate the feed conversion ratio (FCR). At the end of the experiment, all pigs were slaughtered, venous blood was collected to determine biochemical parameters, and liver tissues were collected for the determination of metabolome and transcriptome. The results showed that the average daily gain of pigs in the TRF group was significantly higher than that in the CON group (P<0.05), and the FCR in the TRF group was significantly lower than that in the CON group (P<0.05). Compared with the CON group, the concentration of total bile acid in serum of pigs in the TRF group trended to decrease (P<0.1), and concentrations of alanine aminotransferase and creatine kinase trended to increase (P<0.1). TRF significantly increased the expression of genes concerning the inhibiting protein decomposition (P<0.05), and reduced the decomposition of proteins in the liver, and thus decreased the level of amino acids in the liver. In addition, TRF also significantly increased the expression of genes related to fatty acid metabolism (P<0.05), increased liver fat synthesis and reduced liver fatty acids content. In conclusion, TRF can affect nitrogen metabolism and amino acid metabolism, change the metabolism of fatty acids and proteins in the liver, and then regulate the utilization of nutrients by growing pigs and affect the growth performance of pigs. These results collectively indicate that the growth performance and metabolism of growing pigs can be improved through regulating feeding regime.

Key words: pig, liver, metabolomic profile, transcriptional profile, time-restricted feeding

CLC Number: