Dietary supplementation of milk oligosaccharides supports intestinal barrier integrity and enhances immune function in weaned pigs.

Authors

Kunhong Xie, Yedan Xu, Bing Yu, Zhiqing Huang, Yuheng Luo, Ping Zheng, Xiangbing Mao, Jie Yu, Junqiu Luo, HuiYan, Jun He

Published in

The Journal of nutrition. Pages 101790. Aug 18, 2026. Epub Aug 18, 2026.

Abstract

Milk oligosaccharides (MOs) play a crucial role in the development of the epithelial barrier function in newborn mammals.
To explore the effects of three synthetic MOs-galactooligosaccharides (GOS), 2'-fucosyllactose (2'-FL), and 3'-sialyllactose (3'-SL)-on the growth performance and intestinal health of recently weaned piglets.
Forty Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire (DLY) piglets (7.10 ± 0.25 kg) weaned at 21 days of age were randomly divided into four treatments and fed with basal diet (BD) or BD supplemented with 0.5% different MOs (GOS, 2'-FL and 3'-SL).
2'-FL and 3'-SL significantly increased the growth performance of piglets as shown by decreases in the ratio of feed to gain (F/G) and diarrhea ratio (p < 0. 05), while GOS showed limited effects on these indexes. Compared to dietary GOS, the 2'-FL and 3'-SL supplementation induced a stronger digestibility of nutrients such as dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), and crude fat (EE), and also enhanced the activities of duodenal alkaline phosphatase and maltase as well as jejunal lactase (p < 0.05). Also, 2'-FL and 3'-SL not only increase intestinal villus-to-crypt (V/C) ratio, but also elevate the abundance of zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) and sIgA in the jejunal epithelium (p < 0.05). Additionally, the abundance of Total bacteria, Lactobacillus, Bifdobacterium was numerically higher in digesta of weaned pigs in 2'-FL and 3'-SL groups than those in CON group. Importantly, 2'-FL and 3'-SL selectively increased the ratio of CD4⁺/CD8⁺ cells in mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs), but decrease the abundance of MLNs Th17 and the content of IL-6 in serum. Additionally, 2'-FL and 3'-SL supplementation increased the expression levels of SLC2A2 and SLC27A4, but significantly decreased the expression levels of IL-17A, IL1B, and RELA in the jejunum (p < 0.05).
These results suggested that MOs show a significant beneficial effect on weaned pigs in a structure-dependent manner as 2'-FL and 3'-SL were more effective than GOS partly by improving nutrient absorption and intestinal barrier function.

PMID:
42612826
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 19 Aug 2026.

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