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Mechanism of iron on the intestinal epithelium development in suckling piglets

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Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the mechanism of iron on intestinal epithelium development of suckling piglets. Compared with newborn piglets, 7-day-old and 21-day-old piglets showed changes in the morphology of the jejunum, increased proliferation, differentiated epithelial cells, and expanded enteroids. Intestinal epithelium maturation markers and iron metabolism genes were significantly changed. These results suggest that lactation is a critical stage in intestinal epithelial development, accompanied by changes in iron metabolism. In addition, deferoxamine (DFO) treatment inhibited the activity of intestinal organoids at passage 4 (P4) of 0-day-old piglets, but no significant difference was observed in epithelial maturation markers at passage 1 (P1) and P4, and only argininosuccinate synthetase 1 (Ass1) and β-galactosidase (Gleb) were up-regulated at passage 7 (P7). These results in vitro show that iron deficiency may not directly affect intestinal epithelium development through intestinal stem cells (ISCs). The iron supplementation significantly down-regulated the mRNA expression of interleukin-22 receptor subunit alpha-2 (IL-22RA2) in the jejunum of piglets. Furthermore, the mRNA expression of IL-22 in 7-day-old piglets was significantly higher than that in 0-day-old piglets. Adult epithelial markers were significantly up-regulated in organoids treated with recombinant murine cytokine IL-22. Thus, IL-22 may play a key role in iron-affecting intestinal epithelium development.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32130099), the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (2022RC3060), and the Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutritional Physiology and Metabolic Process open fund projects (ISA2020113).

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  1. Contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunan International Joint Laboratory of Animal Intestinal Ecology and Health, Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Human Health, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China

    Lanmei Yin, Yitong Zhang, Jun Li, Qiye Wang, Jing Huang, Jianzhong Li & Huansheng Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutritional Physiology and Metabolic Process, National Engineering Laboratory for Pollution Control and Waste Utilization in Livestock and Poultry Production, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Lanmei Yin, Jianzhong Li & Huansheng Yang

  3. Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, 300308, China

    Lanmei Yin, Jianzhong Li & Huansheng Yang

  4. State Key Laboratory of Food Safety Technology for Meat Products, Yinxiang Group, Fujian Aonong BiologicaI Science and Technology Group Co., Ltd., Key Laboratory of Swine Nutrition and Feed Science of Fujian Province, Zhangzhou, 363000, China

    Jun Li & Jing Zhou

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  1. Lanmei Yin
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Correspondence to Huansheng Yang.

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Compliance and ethics The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The experimental protocol was approved by the Animal Protection and Utilization Committee of Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province.

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Yin, L., Zhang, Y., Li, J. et al. Mechanism of iron on the intestinal epithelium development in suckling piglets. Sci. China Life Sci. 66, 2070–2085 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-022-2307-7

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