Effect of microencapsulated sodium butyrate dietary supplementation on growth performance and intestinal barrier function of broiler chickens infected with necrotic enteritis

Necrotic enteritis (NE) is an enterotoxigenic disease caused by Clostridium perfringens that results in substantial economic losses to the global poultry industry. Here, we investigated the effects of dietary microencapsulated sodium butyrate (MSB) on the growth performance and intestinal barrier function of broiler chickens co-infected with Eimeria spp. and C. perfringens. Chickens were fed, from hatch, either a diet supplemented with MSB, or with a non-supplemented control diet, and were either left uninfected or orally infected with mixed strains of Eimeria species at 12 d of age, followed by an oral inoculation with C. perfringens at 16, 17, and 18 d of age. NE-infected chickens fed MSB-supplemented diets had greater body weight (BW), improved average daily gains (ADG), and higher feed conversion ratios (FCR) than NE-infected birds fed unsupplemented diets. Increased jejunal villus height, reduced duodenal lesion scores, reduced cecal Escherichia coli and C. perfringens counts, and reduced liver C. perfringens load were also observed in the NE-infected, MSB-supplemented chickens as compared to the NE-infected, unsupplemented birds. NE infection downregulated claudin-4, ZO-1, occludin, LEAP-2, and mucin-2 in the jejunum. However, MSB-fed birds infected with NE had significantly upregulated claudin-1, claudin-4, ZO-1, occludin, LEAP-2, and mucin-2 levels in the jejunum as compared with infected birds fed the non-supplemented diet. We have thus demonstrated that the administration of MSB alleviates intestinal mucosal barrier injury of broiler chickens infected with NE.