Methodological aspects of the in vivo measurement of ileal amino acid digestibility in pigs - A review -

Abstract

Much recent research on protein and amino acid (AA) digestive physiology of pigs has been concerned with measurement of the ileal apparent and true digestion and absorption. For measurement of the ileal apparent digestibility of AA, the steered ileo-caecal valve cannulation (SICV) and the ileo-rectal anastomosis (IRA) techniques appear to be the more reliable and simple methods, when compared with any methods requiring use of a marker for calculation of digestibility, or with the complex techniques of ileo-caecal re-entrant cannula (ICRC) and the postvalve ileo-colic re-entrant cannula (IPVC). On the other hand, the peptide alimentation ultrafiltration methods might be a better choice for measurement of the ileal endogenous nitrogen (N) and AA flow in a routine feedstuff analysis, although the classical method of 15N-isotope dilution method is still a standard method for N and AA nutrition research in pigs.