Phosphorus digestibility and phytate degradation in pigs fed wheat-based diets with different intrinsic phytase activity and added microbial phytase.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of variation in wheat-derived phytase activity on myo-inositol 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakis (dihydrogen phosphate) (InsP6) degradation, inositol phosphate (InsP) isomer concentration and phosphorus (P) digestibility in pigs fed wheat-based diets. Additional effects of a microbial phytase supplementation were also studied. Three wheat genotypes (W1-W3) with an analysed phytase activity between 2760 and 3700 FTU/kg were used to formulate four experimental diets that included soybean meal and rapeseed meal but did not contain a mineral P supplement. DietW1-DietW3 only differed in the included wheat genotypes (W1-W3) at an inclusion level of 400 g/kg. DietW3+ contained W3 and a commercial 6-phytase supplementation at 500 FTU/kg diet. Eight barrows with an initial body weight of 27 kg were fitted with a simple T-cannula at the distal ileum and assigned to the four dietary treatments in a completely randomised row column design. The experiment included four periods of 12 d each. The first 5 d of each period were for diet adaptation, followed by collection of faeces (4 d), ileal digesta (2 d), and blood (last day). In DietW1-DietW3, the mean precaecal (pc) InsP6 disappearance was 48% and the mean pc P digestibility was 37% without a significant effect of the wheat genotype. The InsP6 disappearance measured in the faeces was close to complete in all treatments, and faecal P digestibility was not significantly affected by the wheat genotype (36% overall). The addition of microbial phytase caused a significant increase in pc InsP6 degradation (to 79%) and pc and total tract P digestibility (to 53% and 52%, respectively). The concentration of InsP6 degradation products in ileal digesta was not significantly affected by the wheat genotype, except for that of Ins(1,2,3,4,6)P5 and myo-inositol, which were higher in DietW3 than in DietW1 and DietW2. The added microbial phytase significantly reduced the concentration of InsP5 isomers in the ileal digesta and increased the concentrations of lower InsP isomers and myo-inositol. There were no significant effects of the added microbial phytase on pc amino acid digestibility; however, the wheat genotype exerted significant effects on the pc digestibility of Cys, Gly and Val. It was concluded that an increase in the intrinsic phytase activity of wheat achieved by crossbreeding was not reflected in InsP6 degradation and P digestibility in pigs fed wheat-based diets.

Selective blockade of drug-induced place preference conditioning by ACPC, a functional NDMA-receptor antagonist.

ACPC (1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid) is a partial agonist at the strychnine-insensitive glycine receptor site on the NMDA receptor complex, and a functional NMDA antagonist. A series of experiments was conducted to assess the effects of ACPC in a biased place conditioning paradigm. As previously reported, ACPC itself did not support either appetitive or aversive place conditioning. However, co-administration of ACPC (200 mg/kg) blocked the acquisition of place preferences conditioned using a variety of psychoactive drugs (amphetamine, cocaine, nomifensine, diazepam, morphine, nicotine). No tolerance was seen to this effect following two weeks of chronic ACPC administration. Overall, ACPC did not affect the expression of place conditioning when administered immediately before the post-conditioning test. However, these effects appeared somewhat variable between drugs, and further analysis showed that ACPC did block the expression of preferences conditioned with some drugs (diazepam, morphine, nicotine), but not others (amphetamine, cocaine, nomifensine). The effects of ACPC could not be accounted for by state dependence, as ACPC blocked morphine and cocaine place preferences when administered during both the acquisition and the expression phase of conditioning. In contrast to the blockade by ACPC of drug-induced place preferences, ACPC had no effect on the acquisition of place preferences conditioned using a variety of natural non-drug reinforcers (food, sucrose, social interaction, novelty). ACPC also had no effect on the acquisition of drug-induced place aversions (naloxone, picrotoxin). Thus, ACPC selectively blocked appetitive conditioning by drug reinforcers, without affecting either appetitive conditioning by natural reinforcers or drug-induced aversions. As place preference conditioning has been demonstrated to have high predictive validity for detecting compounds with an abuse potential in humans, this selective action suggests that ACPC might have some clinical utility in the treatment of addiction, without affecting responses to natural rewards.