Solid‐state fermentation pro‐enzymes supplementation benefits growth performance, health, and intestinal microbiota of broiler chickens fed wheat‐based diet

AbstractWheat as a kind of diet material can be used for broiler production. However, due to non‐starch polysaccharides in wheat, wheat may lead to lower growth performance and worth health. To reverse the negative effect, solid‐state fermentation pro‐enzymes were added. In this experiment, growth performance, intestinal health‐related genes, short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and intestinal microbiota were detected to find the effects of wheat meal and combined with enzymes on broiler chickens from 15 to 42 days of age. A total of 432 1‐day‐old Arbor Acres broiler chickens were fed corn‐based diet (CD) for 14 days as the preparation stage of the experiment. Then, they were randomly divided into three groups and fed three different kinds of diets which were corn‐based diet (CD group), wheat‐based diet (WD group), and SFP enzymes supplementation in WD (Enzymes+Wheat‐based diet group). The results showed that compared with broilers in CD group, broilers in WD group had lower weight gain and higher Feed conversion ratio (p < 0.05) during the whole experimental period especially from day 15 to day 21, but there was no significant effect on feed intake (p > 0.05). Moreover, SFP enzymes decreased the spleen index (p < 0.05). Wheat also had trends to decrease the expression of ZO‐1 (p = 0.096) and increase the concentrations of acetate (p < 0.05), butyrate (p < 0.05) and total SCFAs (p < 0.05), in which SFP enzymes caused the opposite results except for butyrate, and SFP enzymes even increased the expression of ZO‐1 (p < 0.001) and OCCLUDIN (p = 0.075) and decreased the expression of TNF‐α (p < 0.01). Meanwhile, wheat enhanced the abundances of Barnesiella and Bifidobacterium (p < 0.05) and inhibited the abundances of Flavonifractor, Sellimonas, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, Subdoligranulum, and Ruminococcus_gauvreauii_group (p < 0.05), and SFP enzymes could reverse the negative effects, and the changes in microbiota could explain the other different parameters. Collectively, wheat results in inflammation and worse growth performance, but SFP enzymes supplementation in WD benefits chickens' growth performance by improving intestinal barrier function, decreasing inflammation, modulating cecal microbiota and SCFAs production.