Synbiotic combination of prebiotic lactulose and probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum shape the intestinal microbiota in weaned piglets challenged with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli

"Development of alternatives to in-feed antibiotics in the swine industry have been the focused of many gut microbiota research in pigs including probiotics, prebiotics and their synbiotic combination to maintain piglet health and preserve public health concern. In this study, we evaluated the impact of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics on pig gut microbiota and their protective effects against Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in weaned piglets using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. A total of 50 healthy crossbred weaned piglets (Duroc x [Landrace x Yorkshire]) weaned at the age of 28 days were used from the experimental research center of Dankook University, Cheonan, South Korea. Each group received a different treatment, as follows: (i) the negative control (CONT) group (n=10) were fed the base diet without any antibiotics or feed supplements; (ii) the synbiotic group 1 (SYN1) (n=10) were fed the base diet supplemented with 0.05% synbiotics; (iii) the synbiotic group 2 (SYN1) (n=10) were fed the base diet supplemented with 0.1% synbiotics; (iv) the probiotic group (PRO) (n=10) fed with the basal diet supplemented with 0.1% probiotics; and (v) the prebiotic group (PRE) (n=10) were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0.05% prebiotics. The synbiotics was formulated with a prebiotic lactulose at a concentration of 5 g/kg feed combined with probiotics Lactobacillus plantarum GB-U17 at a concentration of 1.0 x 10^9 colony forming units (CFU)/kg feed."