Effects of dietary supplementation of Anoectochilus roxburghii extract (ARE) on growth performance, abdominal fat deposition, meat quality, and gut microbiota in broilers

The broiler industry frequently encounters 2 common problems: excessive deposition of abdominal fat and poor quality of meat. However, there are limited nutritional manipulation strategies to address these issues. While Anoectochilus roxburghii (Wall.) Lindl., a traditional Chinese herb, has been shown to have multiple beneficial effects in humans, its potential roles in broiler chickens remain unexplored. In this study, the effects of dietary supplementation with Anoectochilus roxburghii extract (ARE) on growth performance, abdominal fat deposition, meat quality, blood indices, and gut microbiota were investigated in yellow-feather broiler chickens. A total of 90 twenty-one-day-old yellow-feather broilers were randomly divided into 3 treatments, and each treatment included 5 replicates with 6 birds per replicate. Birds were fed a basal diet supplemented with 0, 0.15, or 0.30% ARE for 6 wk. The results showed that the inclusion of ARE in the diet did not have any significant effect on meat yield (P > 0.05). However, it did lead to a reduction in abdominal fat deposition and an improvement in meat quality (P < 0.05). Mechanistically, the addition of ARE inhibited lipid biosynthesis and enhanced lipid breakdown in both the liver and adipose tissue of the broilers. Furthermore, ARE supplementation increased the antioxidase activities in the muscle and serum of the broilers (P < 0.05). In addition, the supplementation of ARE optimized the diversity and composition of the cecal microbiota, particularly by lowering the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes (P < 0.05). Moreover, the abundance of some bacteria that were positively correlated with abdominal fat deposition was reduced by ARE, and vice versa (P < 0.05). Collectively, the results suggest that ARE is a promising candidate as a feed additive for reducing abdominal fat deposition and improving meat quality in the broiler industry.