Abstract

The production of traditional synthesized calcium D-pantothenate (D-PA) is accompanied with chemical pollution, therefore, the eco-friendly bio-fermentation technology has received widespread attention. In order to verify the safety of a novel D-PA product produced by genetically engineered bacteria (Escherichia coli K12), the authors of the current study investigated the influence of adding D-PA to the diet on growth performance and health status of broiler chickens. A total of 192 day-old healthy Arbor Acres broiler chickens with similar weight (43.21 ± 0.12 g) were randomly divided into 4 treatments with 6 replicates and 8 broiler chickens in each replicate (male and female in half). The Escherichia coli K12 was genetically engineered for the production of D-PA. The control group was fed with the basal diet containing 20 mg/kg synthesized D-PA (CT group). The treatments were supplemented with 20 (TCaP1 group, recommended dose group), 100 (TCaP5 group, 5-fold-dose group), and 200 (TCaP10 group, 10-fold-dose group) mg/kg bio-based D-PA product, respectively. The experiment lasted for 42 days and the growth performance and health status of broiler chickens were determined. The results indicated that the addition of 5- and 10-fold doses of bio-based D-PA could increase the average daily weight gain during 22–42 days of age and decrease the feed conversion rate during 22–42 and 1–42 days of age of broilers. There were some differences in white blood cell count, intermediate cell absolute value (MID) count, absolute granulocyte count, absolute lymphocyte count, granulocyte percentage, mean corpuscular volume, red blood cell distribution width-standard deviation, mean platelet volume and serum phosphorus and total bilirubin in different groups, compared with the CT group. Histological observations of the liver, spleen, pancreas, and small intestines showed that the tissue structures of various organs of the broiler chickens fed with the bio-based D-PA were clear, and no abnormal changes such as inflammatory cell infiltration and fibrous tissue hyperplasia were observed in all groups. In summary, dietary supplementation of bio-based D-PA was safe within the 10-fold- dose (200mg/kg) to broiler chickens during 1–42 days. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2024