<b>Intestinal carbohydrase activity and sodium-glucose transporter expression in layers fed diets containing wheat and rice brans supplemented with phytase

Abstract

The effect of diets containing wheat and rice brans with or without phytase supplementation on performance, intestinal carbohydrase activities and mRNA expression of sodium-glucose transporter-1 (SGLT-1) in layers was studied. A total of 96 23-wk-old Hy-line W-36 were allocated in a completely randomized experimental design at random with 6 treatments and 4 replicate cages of 4 birds each. A control diet was used in this experiment and then it was formulated to contain 10% wheat bran and 15% rice bran. Then phytase (2 g kg^-1; 1000 FTU kg^-1) was added to each diet. Feed intake, egg mass, feed conversion ratio, shell weight, shell thickness and Haugh units were not influenced by brans or phytase supplementation (p > 0.05). But egg production decreased in rice bran treatments (p < 0.05). In the jejunum, adding of phytase to control and diet containing wheat bran increased the concentration of sucrase (p ≤ 0.01). Also, addition of phytase to control diet increased (p ≤ 0.001) the mRNA expression of SGLT-1 in the duodenum. It was concluded that feeding layers with diets containing 10% wheat bran were practically feasible without compromising production performance, egg shell quality, and endogenous carbohydrase activity.