Effect of dietary excess of branched-chain amino acids on performance and serum concentrations of amino acids in growing pigs

Depressed performance and availability of some amino acids (AA) in pigs fed excess Leu diets appear to be related to lower feed intake. Surplus Ile and Val may help to overcome this effect. An experiment was conducted with 24 pigs (31.8 +/- 1.2kg initial BW) to evaluate the effect of dietary excess of either Leu alone or with surplus Ile and Val on performance and serum concentration (SC) of essential AA. Treatments were as follows: T1, basal diet; T2, basal plus 0.43% L-Leu (excess Leu); T3, basal added with 0.43% L-Leu, plus 0.20% L-Ile and 0.25% L-Val (excess LIV). The basal diet was formulated to contain 0.90% standardized ileal digestible Lys and added with crystalline L-Lys, L-Thr, DL-Met, L-Trp, L-Leu, L-Ile, L-His and L-Val to create essential AA:Lys ratios close to an ideal protein for growing pigs. All pigs were fed the same amount of feed twice a day (average, 3.42x the requirement of NEm). Blood samples were collected at 2.5 (absorptive) and 11.0h (post-absorptive) post-prandial to analyse SC of AA. Excess of either Leu or LIV did not affect growth rate nor feed conversion. Excess Leu increased Leu SC and decreased Ile and Val SC (p<0.05) at both absorptive and post-absorptive phases, but excess LIV restored the SC of Ile and Val. The SC of other essential AA was not affected by excess of either Leu or LIV. The SC of all AA during absorptive, on average, was about two times higher than that of post-absorptive phase. These results suggest that the reduced availability (SC) of Ile and Val in pigs consuming excess Leu diets is attributed to a reduced absorption and increased cellular degradation rates of them.