Dietary l-arginine supplementation enhances intestinal development and expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in weanling piglets

Abstract

Oral administration of l-arginine has been reported to prevent gut disease in human infants. However, little is known about the effects of dietary arginine supplementation on intestinal development of weaned piglets. In the present study, twenty 21-d-old castrated piglets with 5·3 (sem ·13)kg body weight (BW) were weaned from sows, individually housed and randomly assigned to one of the two maize- and soyabean meal-based diets supplemented with 0 or 1% l-arginine. After consuming the diets for 7d, six pigs were randomly selected from each group to obtain various tissues. Compared with control pigs, dietary supplementation with 1% l-arginine did not affect feed intake but enhanced (P