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Effects of weaning on intestinal longitudinal muscle-myenteric plexus function in piglets

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Abstract

Weaning piglets usually suffer from severe diarrhea (commonly known as postweaning diarrhea, PWD) along with intestinal motility disorder. Intestinal peristalsis is mainly regulated by the longitudinal muscle-myenteric plexus (LM-MP). To understand the relationship between intestinal LM-MP function and the development of PWD, we compared the intestinal electrical activity, and the transcriptional profile of the LM-MP between 21-day-old piglets (just weaned, n=7) and 24-day-old piglets (suffered the most severe weaning stress, n=7). The results showed that 24-day-old piglets exhibited different degrees of diarrhea. A significant increase in the slow-wave frequency in the ileum and colon was observed in 24-day-old piglets, while c-kit expression in the intestinal LM-MPs was significantly decreased, indicating that PWD caused by elevated slow-wave frequency may be associated with loss of c-kit. The real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) showed that intestinal LM-MPs in 24-day-old piglets may undergo inflammation and oxidative stress. Significant increases in 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine and decreases in thioredoxin suggest that weaning may lead to DNA damage in the LM-MP of 24-day-old piglets. In addition, activating transcription factor 3 was significantly upregulated, indicating nerve damage in the LM-MP of 24-day-old piglets. The transcriptomic results showed that most of the differentially expressed genes in the ileal LM-MP after weaning were downregulated and closely related to the cell cycle process. Subsequent RT-qPCR analysis showed that the relative expression of p21 was upregulated, while the expression of cyclin A2, cyclin B1, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen was downregulated in the ileal and colonic LM-MP of 24-day-old piglets, suggesting that weaning may inhibit cell proliferation and cause G1/S cell cycle arrest in ileal and colonic LM-MP. In conclusion, weaning may lead to cell cycle arrest by causing DNA damage in the LM-MP, impairing intestinal motility regulation, and ultimately leading to diarrhea in piglets.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32130099) and the Scientific and Technological Project of Changsha City (kh2201234). Thanks for the transcriptomics technical support of Novogen Biotech Co., Ltd.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Agro-Ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutritional Physiology and Metabolic Process, Hunan Research Center of Livestock and Poultry Sciences, South Central Experimental Station of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science in the Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Jing Li, Fenfen Liu, Kaibin Mo, Hengjia Ni & Yulong Yin

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100008, China

    Fenfen Liu, Hengjia Ni & Yulong Yin

  3. Guangdong Key Laboratory for Veterinary Drug Development and Safety Evaluation, College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Kaibin Mo

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Li, J., Liu, F., Mo, K. et al. Effects of weaning on intestinal longitudinal muscle-myenteric plexus function in piglets. Sci. China Life Sci. 67, 379–390 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-022-2391-x

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