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Dietary l-arginine supplementation enhances placental growth and reproductive performance in sows

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Abstract

Suboptimal embryonic/fetal survival and growth remains a significant problem in mammals. Using a swine model, we tested the hypothesis that dietary l-arginine supplementation during gestation may improve pregnancy outcomes through enhancing placental growth and modulating hormonal secretions. Gestating pigs (Yorkshire × Landrace, n = 108) were assigned randomly into two groups based on parity and body weight, representing dietary supplementation with 1.0% l-arginine–HCl or 1.7% l-alanine (isonitrogenous control) between days 22 and 114 of gestation. Blood samples were obtained from the ear vein on days 22, 40, 70 and 90 of gestation. On days 40, 70 and 90 of gestation, concentrations of estradiol in plasma were higher (P < 0.05) in arginine-supplemented than in control sows. Moreover, arginine supplementation increased (P < 0.05) the concentrations of arginine, proline and ornithine in plasma, but concentrations of urea or progesterone in plasma did not differ between the two groups of sows. Compared with the control, arginine supplementation increased (P < 0.05) the total number of piglets by 1.31 per litter, the number of live-born piglets by 1.10 per litter, the litter birth weight for all piglets by 1.36 kg, and the litter birth weight for live-born piglets by 1.70 kg. Furthermore, arginine supplementation enhanced (P < 0.05) placental weight by 16.2%. The weaning-to-estrus interval of sows was not affected by arginine supplementation during gestation. These results indicate that dietary arginine supplementation beneficially enhances placental growth and the reproductive performance of sows.

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Abbreviations

BF:

Backfat

IUGR:

Intrauterine growth restriction

NO:

Nitric oxide

NOS:

Nitric oxide synthase

ODC:

Ornithine decarboxylase

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Acknowledgments

We thank the staff members of Guangdong Wen’s Foodstuffs Group CO. Ltd. for the support of this work. The skilled technical assistance of Dr. Pengbin Xi, Dr. Xianyong Ma, Dr. Zhenfang Wu, Mrs. Yantao Wang, Mr. Xianwei Ma and Mr. Xiaodong Zhang are gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Dr. Shikui Wang for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China (2009DFA31570), International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of Guangdong Province (2006A50106002), the earmarked fund for Modern Agro-industry Technology Research System (CARS-36), the National ‘973’ Project of China (2010CB35701), and Texas AgriLife Research Hatch Project (H-8200).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, Guangdong, China

    Kaiguo Gao & Lin Yang

  2. Guangdong Public Laboratory of Animal Breeding and Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science (South China), State Key Laboratory of Livestock and Poultry Breeding, Institute of Animal Science, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, Guangdong, China

    Kaiguo Gao, Zongyong Jiang, Yingcai Lin, Chuntian Zheng, Guilian Zhou & Fang Chen

  3. Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, 2471 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843-2471, USA

    Guoyao Wu

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  1. Kaiguo Gao
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  2. Zongyong Jiang
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Correspondence to Zongyong Jiang.

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Gao, K., Jiang, Z., Lin, Y. et al. Dietary l-arginine supplementation enhances placental growth and reproductive performance in sows. Amino Acids 42, 2207–2214 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-011-0960-9

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