Effects of early intervention with sodium butyrate on lipid metabolism-related gene expression and liver metabolite profiles in neonatal piglets

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of early intervention with sodium butyrate on the lipid metabolism and liver metabolite profiles in neonatal piglets. Ten litters of newborn crossbred Duroc×Landrace×Large White piglets were randomly assigned to the control or sodium butyrate treatment with 5 litters per treatment. Piglets in the sodium butyrate treatment were orally administered with 7-13 mL sodium butyrate solution (150 mmol/L) per day from d 0-6, whereas the piglets in the control treatment were treated with the same dose of physiological saline. At the age of 7 and 21 d, 1 piglet from each litter was sacrificed. The liver, backfat, and loin muscle of piglets were collected for gene expression or metabolome analysis. The results showed that sodium butyrate treatment had no effect on the growth performance of piglets. Sodium butyrate decreased the concentration of cholesterol (P<0.05) and tended to decrease high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (P=0.079) in the serum on d 7, while there was no difference in serum metabolites between 2 treatments on d 21. Real-time PCR assay showed that sodium butyrate down-regulated the mRNA expression of lipogentic genes sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c and fatty acid synthetize in the liver on d 7 (P<0.05). Adipocyte markers leptin, fatty acid binding protein 4, and peroxisome proliferatoractivated receptor γ expression in backfat were up-regulated (P<0.05) by sodium butyrate treatment on d 7. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis showed that sodium butyrate mainly affected liver glycolysis metabolism and gluconeogenesis metabolism of piglets on d 7 and 21. These results indicate that early oral administration of sodium butyrate could change the lipid metabolism by decreasing fatty acid synthesis, and modulate hepatic metabolite profiles.