PIG-PARADIGM ECRs at ISEP 2025
🌍✨ Celebrating our Early Career Researchers ✨🌍
Last week, our of our PhD students from Aarhus University, Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Maria Skødt Kroier and Li Hsuan Chen, participated the 8th EAAP International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition (ISEP2025). Both of them had poster presentations, and we are excited to share that Li Hsuan received the Best Poster Award at the conference 🎉👏 - a fantastic recognition of his hard work and research!
🔬Maria's poster is titled "Effect of Protein Level and Essential Amino Acid Supplementation on Indicators of Gut Health in Weaned Piglets", her study focused on how essential amino acids supplementation above recommendations to a high protein diet, influence diarrhea, growth, quantification of bacterial abundance and microbial-derived metabolite concentrations in digesta.
Key conclusions:
🔹Extra EAA supplementation reduced diarrhea and growth, while increasing lactic acid and total biogenic amine concentrations
- Higher biogenic amine levels in CAE and CO1 suggest that free EAAs reached the hindgut
🔹Changes in bacterial counts and metabolites do not fully explain EAAs underlying mechanisms, warranting further investigation
🔬Li Hsuan's poster is titled "The impact of microbial-derived metabolites on gut function in weaned piglets under different levels of dietary protein and a surplus of dietary amino acids". This study investigated how different dietary protein levels and extra EAA supplementation influence the digesta metabolome of piglets, and to evaluate the effects of digesta and microbial-derived metabolites on colonic cell lines and organoids in vitro.
Key conclusion:
🔹Untargeted metabolomics showed that extra EAA supplementation did not markedly alter overall digesta metabolome composition, aligning with colonic cell line and organoid viability assays; however, certain protein fermentation metabolites were harmful to colonic cells at in vivo concentrations.
🔹Extra EAA supplementation may alleviate barrier dysfunction and diarrhea risk induced by high crude protein diets in weaned piglets by improving microbial energy utilization and supporting colonocyte energy balance and barrier function through purine metabolism.
Both posters received strong interest from the audience. Maria especially enjoyed the lively discussions on EAAs, high-protein diets, and the mechanisms behind the diarrhea-reducing effect of supplementation.
✨ Congratulations once again to Maria and Li Hsuan for their great work and contributions at ISEP 2025!