Short-term feeding of defatted bovine colostrum mitigates inflammation in the gut via changes in metabolites and microbiota in a chicken animal model

The causes of inflammation in the gut change by location according to the local digesta composition and lumen environmental conditions that further affect microbial diversity. Bovine colostrum (BC) contains a rich matrix of compounds with referenced beneficial effects in gut physiology in general but to date no comprehensive assessment of what changes in gut metabolites and bacteria might occur with consumption of BC that specifically and repeatedly could impact inflammation status in the small intestine. To this point, we employed a novel chicken animal model highly sensitive to even mild inflammatory stimuli and compared feeding a standard feed (Con) to the effects of Con supplemented with BC or nonfat dry milk (NFDM) for any changes in ileal nitro-oxidative inflammation status, efficiency of nutrient use, ileal morphology, metabolites, and the composition of the microbiota. Uniquely, the BC-supplemented diet was associated with a rapid improved efficiency of nutrient use consistent with the observed increased ileum absorptive surface. The defatted BC reduced epithelial cell tyrosine-nitrated protein (NTp, biomarker of nitrooxidative inflammatory stress) content by 37% compared to Con or NFDM. Metabolome analysis revealed that related metabolites, metabolite precursors and conjugates in a pathway group, were superior to individual molecules in predicting the extent to which BC-associated effects mitigated NTp. Anti-inflammatory/anti-NTp metabolites were significantly greater in abundance in the digesta of BC fed animals. Consistent with the present concepts of gut eubiosis, BC affected the composition and structure of the gut microbiota, particularly as regards the greater abundance of immunomodulating segmented filamentous bacteria (SFB, Candidatus Arthromitus) specific to ileal epithelial scrapings. Overall, the data suggest that BC established an anti-inflammatory environment in the ileum through increased content of defined groups of anti-inflammatory metabolites coincident with beneficial alterations in the microbiota.

肠道炎症的成因随地理位置而变化，这一变化取决于局部消化物组成和管腔环境条件，进而影响微生物多样性。牛初乳（BC）富含一系列具有文献记载的益于肠道生理功能的化合物，但截至目前，尚未对BC摄入后可能引起的肠道代谢物和细菌变化进行全面的评估，尤其是这些变化是否能够特异性且反复地影响小肠的炎症状态。鉴于此，我们采用了一种新型鸡动物模型，该模型对轻微炎症刺激高度敏感。我们将标准饲料（Con）与添加BC或脱脂奶粉（NFDM）的Con进行比较，以观察这些处理对回肠硝基氧化性炎症状态、营养利用效率、回肠形态、代谢物和微生物群组成的影响。独特的是，BC补充饮食与营养利用效率的迅速提高有关，这与观察到的回肠吸收表面积的增大相一致。与Con或NFDM相比，脱脂BC将上皮细胞酪氨酸硝化蛋白（NTp，硝基氧化性炎症应激的生物标志物）含量降低了37%。代谢组学分析显示，在途径组中相关代谢物、代谢物前体及其共轭物，在预测BC相关效应减轻NTp的程度方面优于单个分子。抗炎/抗NTp代谢物在BC喂养动物的消化物中含量显著更高。与肠道微生态平衡的现代理念一致，BC影响了肠道微生物群的组成和结构，特别是在回肠上皮刮取物中免疫调节性分节丝状菌（SFB，Candidatus Arthromitus）的丰富度增加。总体而言，数据表明，BC通过增加特定抗炎代谢物的含量，在回肠中建立了抗炎环境，同时伴随着微生物群有益的改变。