Grape pomace improves performance, antioxidant status, fecal microbiota and meat quality of piglets.

In the present study, grape pomace (GP) was used as feed additive in the diet of weaned piglets in order to develop innovative feedstuffs and to investigate their potential beneficial effects on welfare, productivity and meat quality. For examining the antioxidant capacity of the experimental feeds, 24 piglets of 20 days old were assigned to two experimental groups receiving standard or experimental diet for 30 days. Blood and tissues collections were performed at four different time-points, 2, 20, 35 and 50 days post birth. The collected tissues were brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, quadriceps muscle, pancreas, spleen and stomach. The following oxidative stress markers were assessed: reduced glutathione (GSH), catalase activity, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), protein carbonyls (CARB) and H2O2 decomposition activity. The effect on bacterial growth was assessed by examining microbial populations in piglets' fecal microbiota. Furthermore, the average daily gain (ADG) was calculated and the fatty acid profile of quadriceps muscle was assessed. The results showed that piglets fed with the diet supplemented with GP, had significantly increased antioxidants mechanisms in almost all the tissues as shown by increases in GSH, H2O2 decomposition activity and TAC compared with control group. Piglets fed with the experimental diet exhibited decreased oxidative stress-induced damage to lipids and proteins as shown by decreases in TBARS and CARB in GP group compared with control. In addition, the experimental diet increased significantly ADG (by 23.65%) (P<0.05) and enhanced the growth of facultative probiotic bacteria (by up to 1.2 log colony forming units (CFU)/g) (P<0.05) and lactic acid bacteria (by up to 2.0 log CFU/g) (P<0.05) in GP group compared with the control group. GP supplementation inhibited the growth of pathogen populations such as Enterobacteriacae (by up to 1.8 log CFU/g) (P<0.05) and Campylobacter jejuni (by up to 1.0 log CFU/g) (P<0.05). Regarding fatty acid composition of meat, GP inclusion in piglets' diet increased significantly n-3 fatty acids (EPA; C20 : 5n-3, DHA; C22 : 6n-3, α-linolenic acid; C18 : 3n-3) and decreased significantly n-6/n-3 ratio compared with control (P<0.05). The results suggested that dietary GP supplementation may have a beneficial impact on piglets' welfare and may improve productivity as well as meat quality.

Grape pomace improves antioxidant capacity and faecal microflora of lambs.

Grape pomace is a by-product of winemaking process and rich in bioactive compounds such as plant polyphenols having antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. As known, oxidative stress may cause a number of pathological conditions in farm animals and thus affecting animal welfare and production. Moreover, pathogenic bacteria affect animals' health status. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate whether lambs' feed supplemented with grape pomace enhances the antioxidant mechanisms and reduces the growth of pathogenic bacteria. For this purpose, redox status was assessed in blood and tissues using oxidative stress markers in lambs fed with diet supplemented with grape pomace. Moreover, the effect on bacterial growth was assessed by examining microbial populations in lambs' faecal microflora. The following oxidative stress markers were assessed: reduced glutathione (GSH), catalase activity (CAT), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) and protein carbonyls (CARB). Twenty-four lambs were assigned to two experimental groups receiving standard or experimental diet for 55 days. Blood and tissues (liver, quadriceps muscle, spleen, heart and brain) were collected at two different time-points, 42 and 70 days post-birth, after ration administration. The results showed that lambs fed with experimental diet had significantly increased antioxidants mechanisms in blood and tissues as shown by increases in CAT and GSH compared to control. Moreover, lambs fed with the experimental diet exhibited decreased oxidative stress-induced damage to lipids and proteins as shown by decreases in TBARS and CARB respectively. In addition, the experimental diet enhanced the growth of facultative probiotic bacteria and inhibited the growth of pathogen populations such as Enterobacteriacae and E. coli. This is the first study investigating the effect of diet supplemented with grape pomace on the redox status and microbiota of lambs.

Effect of Melissa officinalis supplementation on growth performance and meat quality characteristics in organically produced broilers.

1. A trial was conducted to study the effect of Melissa officinalis supplementation on organic broiler performance and meat chemical, microbiological, sensory and nutritional quality. 2. Male and female day-old Ross 308 chicks were fed on a standard commercial diet containing 0, 2.5, 5 or 10 g/kg feed ground M. officinalis for 84 d before slaughter. 3. Weight gain and feed conversion ratio were significantly improved in the broilers receiving either 5 or 10 mg M. officinalis/kg feed. 4. Inclusion of M. officinalis did not affect muscle chemical and fatty acid composition. 5. On the basis of microbiological and sensory experimental data and subsequent extension of meat shelf life, M. officinalis did not reduce the microbial populations of the meat, but was effective in limiting lipid oxidation.

Short communication: determination of lactoferrin in Feta cheese whey with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

In the current paper, a method is introduced to determine lactoferrin in sweet whey using reversed-phase HPLC without any pretreatment of the samples or use of a separation technique. As a starting point, the most common HPLC protocols for acid whey, which included pretreatment of the whey along with a sodium dodecyl sulfate-PAGE step, were tested. By skipping the pretreatment and the separation steps while altering the gradient profile, different chromatographs were obtained that proved to be equally efficient to determine lactoferrin. For this novel 1-step reversed-phase HPLC method, repeatability was very high over a wide range of concentrations (1.88% intraday to 5.89% interday). The limit of detection was 35.46µg/mL [signal:noise ratio (S/N)=3], whereas the limit of quantification was 50.86µg/mL (S/N=10). Omitting the pretreatment step caused a degradation of the column's lifetime (to approximately 2,000 samples). As a result, the lactoferrin elution time changed, but neither the accuracy nor the separation ability of the method was significantly influenced. We observed that this degradation could be easily avoided or detained by centrifuging the samples to remove fat or by extensive cleaning of the column after every 5 samples.