Productive and physiological implications of top-dress addition of branched-chain amino acids and arginine on lactating sows and offspring

BACKGROUND: Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), including L-leucine (L-Leu), L-isoleucine (L-Ile), L-valine (L-Val), and L-arginine (L-Arg), play a crucial role in mammary gland development, secretion of milk and regulation of the catabolic state and immune response of lactating sows. Furthermore, it has recently been suggested that free amino acids (AAs) can also act as microbial modulators. This study aimed at evaluating whether the supplementation of lactating sows with BCAAs (9, 4.5 and 9 g/d/sow of L-Val, L-Ile and L-Leu, respectively) and/or L-Arg (22.5 g/d/sow), above the estimated nutritional requirement, could influence the physiological and immunological parameters, microbial profile, colostrum and milk composition and performance of sows and their offspring. RESULTS: At d 41, piglets born from the sows supplemented with the AAs were heavier (P = 0.03). The BCAAs increased glucose and prolactin (P < 0.05) in the sows’ serum at d 27, tended to increase immunoglobulin A (IgA) and IgM in the colostrum (P = 0.06), increased the IgA (P = 0.004) in the milk at d 20 and tended to increase lymphocyte% in the sows’ blood at d 27 (P = 0.07). Furthermore, the BCAAs tended to reduce the Chao1 and Shannon microbial indices (P < 0.10) in the sows’ faeces. The BCAA group was discriminated by Prevotellaceae_UCG-004, Erysipelatoclostridiaceae UCG-004, the Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group and Treponema berlinense. Arginine reduced piglet mortality pre- (d 7, d 14) and post-weaning (d 41) (P < 0.05). Furthermore, Arg increased the IgM in the sow serum at d 10 (P = 0.05), glucose and prolactin (P < 0.05) in the sow serum at d 27 and the monocyte percentage in the piglet blood at d 27 (P = 0.025) and their jejunal expression of NFKB2 (P = 0.035) while it reduced the expression of GPX-2 (P = 0.024). The faecal microbiota of the sows in Arg group was discriminated by Bacteroidales. The combination of BCAAs and Arg tended to increase spermine at d 27 (P = 0.099), tended to increase the Igs (IgA and IgG, P < 0.10) at d 20 in the milk, favoured the faecal colonisation of Oscillospiraceae UCG-005 and improved piglet growth. CONCLUSION: Feeding Arg and BCAAs above the estimated requirements for milk production may be a strategy to improve sow productive performance in terms of piglet average daily gain (ADG), immune competence and survivability via modulation of the metabolism, colostrum and milk compositions and intestinal microbiota of the sows. The synergistic effect between these AAs, noticeable by the increase of Igs and spermine in the milk and in the improvement of the performance of the piglets, deserves additional investigation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40104-022-00819-8