Acremonium terricola culture plays anti-inflammatory and antioxidant roles by modulating MAPK signaling pathways in rats with lipopolysaccharide-induced mastitis

BACKGROUND: As a major disease affecting dairy cow production worldwide, bovine mastitis is caused by a variety of pathogenic microorganisms that eventually cause mammary gland inflammation. Acremonium terricola culture (ATC) is a new type of affordable feed additive produced by the solid fermentation of A. terricola isolated from Cordyceps gunnii and exerted its anti-inflammatory effect. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the protective effects of ATC on mastitis and investigate its active mechanism, a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced rat mastitis model was used in two experiments. DESIGN: In Experiment 1, a total of 40 female Sprague–Dawley rats were used to determine the optimal supplementary dose of ATC via gavage trial. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of an optimal dose of ATC on LPS-induced mastitis in rats. RESULTS: The results of Experiment 1 showed that administration of ATC improved growth performance and antioxidant functions in the serum and the liver, as well as immunoglobulin A, G, and M levels in rat serum, and it decreased the content of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, triglyceride, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and serum urea nitrogen in rat serum; a dosage of 250–1,250 mg/kg/day was shown to be high enough to be effective. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that ATC can relieve the inflammatory reaction of mammary glands in rats, and the LPS-induced expression of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, and inducible nitric oxide synthase significantly decreased after ATC treatment. Moreover, our results demonstrated that ATC markedly enhanced the activity of antioxidase in this rat mastitis model. The results of Western blot analysis revealed that ATC could suppress the expression of toll-like receptor 4, phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and activity of c-Jun N-terminal kinase in the LPS-stimulated mastitis model. CONCLUSION: Taken together, ATC was shown to exert its anti-inflammatory effect by blocking mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways. These results demonstrate that ATC exerts anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects in mastitis prevention.