Masters Theses

Sung min Choi

Date of Award

8-1994

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Animal Science

Major Professor

J.P. Hitchcock

Committee Members

Jim Miller, Ralph Hall

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to determine the effect of injected alpha-tocopherol on plasma iron and lipid peroxidation in the newborn pig and the optimum level of vitamin E and iron for practical application and optimum performance in the commercial swine industry.

In the first experiment 48 newborn cross-bred pigs were used in a 2*4 factorial arrangement with 8 pigs coming from each of 6 litters. The treatments consisted of 2 levels of iron: 0 or 100 mg as gleptoferrin at 3 days of age and four alpha-tocopherol levels: 0, 300, 600 and 900 lU.

The second (32 pigs) and third (48 pigs) experiments utilized 80 newborn cross-bred pigs in a 2*4 factorial arrangement with 4 pigs per treatment in experiment 2 and 6 pigs per treatment for experiment 3 . The treatments consisted of two levels of iron: 100 or 200 mg as gleptoferrin at 3 days of age and four alpha-tocopherol injections: 0, 300, 600 and 900 lU. Results obtained from experiment 1 indicated that iron injections of 100 mg significantly increased blood hematocrit and hemoglobin levels on wk1, wk2, and wk3 when compared to no iron injections. Alpha-tocopherol injected at 300, 600 and 900 lU significantly increased plasma α-tocopherol concentration on wk1, wk2, and wk3. There were more significant changes at an early age (wk1 and wk2) than wk3 on plasma α-tocopherol concentration. Iron injection of 100 mg significantly increased plasma iron concentration on wk1 and wk3 when compared to no iron injection. Pigs injected with 100 mg of iron had lower plasma lipid peroxidation levels on wk1, wk2, and wk3 when compared to uninjected pigs. This result suggests that iron injection of 100 mg did not cause a tremendous oxidative stress and damage to the newborn pig. Plasma iron was increased by an injection of 100 mg of iron at 3 days of age but lipid peroxidation levels were lower. Thus, the injection of 100 mg of iron must not provide a serious free radical challenge to the young newborn pig. Iron injections of 100 mg did not affect the weight gain at 21 days and weaning. Pigs treated with vitamin E 900 lU injections tended to be heavier than other levels of vitamin E treated baby pigs at day 21 and at weaning. Partial correlation coefficients (-.44) between 21 day's weight and Vit.E on wk3 suggest that heavier baby pigs had lower Vit.E concentration in their plasma. wk1 tiobarbituric reactive substances (TEA) and wt of pig at day 21 and weaning wt had significant negative correlations. Vit.E injections were positively highly correlated with wk1 TEA values and wk2 Vit.E. wk1 TEA, wk2 TEA (.017), and wk3 TEA (.033) were highly positive correlated with each other. Plasma iron was not correlated with wk2 TEA (.69) , or wk3 TEA (.41) . These results suggest that iron injection of 100 mg did not result in a elevated plasma iron concentration that would cause free radical damage in the newborn pig.

The results obtained from experiments 2 and 3 indicated that there was a significant increase when higher injections of α-tocopherol were given to have higher plasma α-tocopherol concentrations during the experimental period. Lipid peroxidation levels were significantly decreased with vitamin E injections of 300, 600, and 900 lU on wk2 and wk3 when compared to no vitamin E injections. There was a tendency for Vit. E injections to decrease lipid peroxidation levels on wk1. Iron injections of 100 or 200 mg did not increased free radical stress. As observed in experiment 1, increasing the amount of iron injected from 0 to 100 mg did not result in increased lipid peroxidation. There was a trend for Vit.E injections to increase weights at 21 days and weaning. However, the birth weights of groups 600 and 900 lU Vit.E could have influenced the 21 day and weaning weight, since they were heavier at birth. Weight at birth, and day 21, and vitamin E were negatively highly correlated -0.37 and -0.34, with wk1 Vit.E, respectively. Partial correlation coefficients (-.35) between 21 day weight and Vit.E on wk3 indicated that heavier baby pigs had lower Vit.E concentration in the plasma. wk1, wk2 and wk3 TEA and wt of the pig at day 21 had high negative correlations -.36, -.40,and -.33, respectively. This indicated that larger pigs had lower TEA values at all 3 measurement times. Plasma iron was not significantly correlated with TEA at any measurement period. In addition, plasma vitamin E and TEA at all 3 measurement periods were not significantly correlated in these 2 experiments.

Increasing the amount of iron injected from 100 to 200 mg did not result in increased lipid peroxidation. Thus, the injection of 2 00 mg of iron must not provide a significant free radical challenge to the newborn pig. Eased on wk2 and wk3 TEA values, this suggests that a 300 lU injection of Vit.E could be a marginal recommendation volume without severe oxidative damage with 100 or 200 mg iron.

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