The last 40 years of livestock industry have been marked by considerable progress in genetics, nutrition, bioenergetics and metabolism, as well veterinary medicine. Better diagnostic tools, improved vaccination programmes, more efficient drugs, and, even more important, improved communication (e.g. in epidemiology) helped farmers in successfully running their business. Nevertheless, the increasin...
Thank you Theunis... I think the breeding companies will target higher performance in the future to cope with the increasing demand for high quality animal products. In my opinion, the problem will be that nutrition is not able to keep pace with the development. We see this today already as the biological or genetic potential of the animal is hardly reached under normal farming conditions. The increased performance can only be achieved if nutrition is adapted accordingly. It is quite difficult to predict the future development of the industry. But in my opinion, nutrition is the only possibility to trigger high performance. And feed additives for sure will become more and more important to ensure the demand of consumers for high quality, safe and clean products.
Interesting article about The Use of Nucleotides in Animal Feed andfeed additives. Are you using nucleotides in pet food? what are the ingredients containing nucleotides? Is egg powder considered as one of this?
Dear Cris,
the clear answer is YES....nucleotides make sense in every feed, not only in feed for commercial animals. The clear benefits of the adequate supply of nucleotides with the diets not only apply to pigs or poultry but also to pets. The problem is how to "measure" the effects in pets as there is no performance that can addressed. In pets there are more "subjective" effects in most cases only visible for the vet or the owner of the animal.
Every feed material that is derived from animal or plant origin usually contains cells that carry nucleotides already. Most of the nucleotides are present in the DNA of the nucleus. In metabolic active tissues or plants RNA also contributes to the total nucleotide content. Usually feed ingredients from animal origin are higher in total nucleotides whereas plant derived raw material are lower. But the "balance" of nucleotides mentioned in the article is not achieved by any of the raw materials independent if derived from animal or plant origin.
Yes, there are numerous trial experiments available from fish and shrimp demonstrating the benefits of nucleotide supplemention offeed additives in aquaculture. According to our experience nucleotide products must be added to the feed. The usage of nucleotide products as "top-dressing" is not recommended due to the solubility of nucleotides in water. If the products are mixed into the feed the loss of nucleotides is neglectable.
Hi Cris,
I do not want to advertize for specific products available on the market. most of the nucleotide products claim to be more or less high in nucleotides. Just ask the supplier of the products for specific nucleotide profiles and composition and you will find out which products are worth to evaluate and wich are not.
Raw materials differe quite wide in total nucleotide content. in general the products from animal origin are higher in nucleotides. Plant derived raw materials in general are lower in total nucleotide content. Metabolic active tissues or organisms in general are higher than resting tissues or organisms. This means that raw materials from animal or plant origin overlap in their nucleotide content dependent on their metabolic activities and growth status.
When you say "nucleotides", are you referring to dNTPs and NTPs (nucleotide triphosphates)? Do you include monophosphate and diphosphates and free bases in your definition? Also, how are nucleotides consumed in animal feed metabolized? Wouldn't they be broken down in the intestine?
I am not necessarily referring to NTPs or dNTPs only as the triphosphates are just a fraction of the nucleotides available in cells but I think it is difficult to quantify mono-, di- and triphosphates in diets or in cells. It is correct that the enzymatic degradation in the intestinal tract is generating nucleosides and finally purine as well as pyrimidine bases. However, it is very difficult to quantify the amounts of nucleotides, nucleosides and bases that are actually absorbed from the intestinal tract. As far as I know little of the available nucleotides are directly absorbed. The majority of nucleotides is broken down to nucleosides before absorbed and a minority of the original nucleotides is already degraded down to bases before absorbed. This is a matter of time available for the degradation and the natural balance or equilibration of anabolic as well as catabolic processes. Maybe there are other users of this forum that might be able to contribute and share additional physiological details.
I have queries like the supplementation of these nucleotides in PS(Parent stock) is there is any research on this and that has implication in transferring the humoral antibody?
The second query was the addition of nucleotides in commercial broilers ---to the entire period(day 1 to till culling) or to only inthe perliminary stages
The third query does your nucleotides would be denatured during pellatization temperature
Our products are successfully used in Parent and Grandparent stocks. Unfortunately we did never check for the effects of nucleotides on transferring humoral antibodies there. This is an interesting topic we should consider in a trial in the future. In broilers we have done several trials focusing on the time to develop intestinal structures and imune response in chicks. It turned out that nucleotides, when correctly dosed and well balanced for the needs of the chicks, improve the development and gain time in the development. For instance the development of intestinal villi structure usually takes two weeks before completed. The addition of nucleotides reduces this time for proper development of intestinal structures to ten days. This advantage in the development of tissues and regulatory systems of chicks is retained until culling even if the nucleotides are not continously added to the feed. We actually recommend to use the nucleotides for the first ten days only. The benefits of feeding nucleotides from day-old until day ten of broilers is retained until culling resulting in reduced mortalities and improved weight gain as well as increased final weight of the birds. Nucleotides are not protein structures that can be denatured. Nucleotides are biological active molecules that are quite stabel even during pellatization or extrusion of feed. Nucleotides endure temperatures of up to 140 - 160 degrees for a short period of time (5 minutes or so). We have tried to sterilize solutions containing nucleotides at 120 degrees for more than 20 minutes at elevated pressure (autoclaving) and did not find any reduction in the nucleotide content or composition.
Hi Dr. Klaus, I would like to understand how the nucleotides used for feed, food and pharmaceutical usage are different and the different quality certification required in each of the end use industry. From my research I have observed that the use of nucelotides in pharma industry is limited to grams or to kilograms scale. Could you kindly help me understand if it is a possible scenario that there are manufacturers for pharmaceutical grade nucleotides, with metric ton scale production capabilities. Any inputs from your side will help me a great deal. Regards, Utkarsh Jhanwar
Dear Dr. Hoffmann I would like to inform you that we have the biggest poultry industry in our region ( Middle East) . Use of hormones and antibodies in feed has been stop and forbidden since about 5 years or longer.
I am interest to replace the hormones or antibodies by nucleotides products, but first we need the searching, and test and check in farms for determine of efficacy and quality of this product to academic, clinical doctors and producers in my country, Iran ( for suggest that they can use this in this industry).
I need your help, how can you help me to do? Best Hamid
1. Dietary nucleotides are know considered a "desirable" nutrient in human diets. However there is a limit past which they become Antinutritional factors - as several studies have shown, they may induce ATP depletion in certain cells and their metabolic end products may induce conditions such as gout-. Yeast containing products are very rich sources of nucleotides and there is a recommendation for restricted use in humans. Am I correct? although these conditions seem to be less relevant in animal nutrition my question is: Why are nucleotides so "universal" in metabolism ( from information perpetuation to energy currency and co enzymes etc.? In other words what condition in their chemical structure makes them so fit for these so many purposes? Thanks.
nucleotides which consist of three parts: Nitrogenous base ( In DNA, the bases are adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). In RNA, the bases are adenine, thymine, uracil, and cytosine), Pentose sugar (In DNA, the sugar is 2'-deoxyribose. In RNA, the sugar is ribose. Both ribose and deoxyribose are 5-csrbon sugars), and Phosphate Group
A single phosphate group is PO43-. The phosphorus atom is the central atom. One atom of oxygen is connected to the 5-carbon in the sugar and to the phosphorus atom. When phosphate groups link together to form chains, as in ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the link looks like O-P-O-P-O-P-O, with two additional oxygen atom attached to each phosphorus, one on either side of the atom
Prof Mohammed. Thanks. However the Anhdride Phosphate bond ( As in ATP) does not explain why nucleotides have evolved to perform such distinct functions as in COa, Panthotenic acid, nucleic acids etc. etc. Nucleotides are big molecules but in many cases their activity is due to different specific components. The anhdride bond does not explain their functions with the exception perhaps as in energy transer and reaction coupling. Perhaps Engormix is not the appropiate forum to discuss basic biochemistry. Thanks again.
Very much informative discussion. Thank you all for sharing your views. I want to know the exact mechanism of action of nucleotide/nucleoside in poultry.
What are the physiological parameters that can be improved with the use of nucleotide/nucleoside?
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