ImmunoWall®: Natural solution to control pathogens in the swine production

In these past years, the concept of food safety has become increasingly more evident in the food production, mainly when it is related with the export of products of animal origin, which is a huge challenge to the industries to ensure food safety.

The demand for healthier and more natural ingredients in food gains strength in Brazil and the world, with investment in technology and industry adhesion. The technology in the manufacture of the products is fundamental and integrates techniques for standardization of production, storage, distribution, conservation of the nutritional potential of the raw material, which in addition to improving productivity allows reaching an increasingly better quality level. Thus, establishing a link between good quality, nutritional value, and food safety is a task that has demanded a lot of research on the part of the industries to ensure public health. Brazil is one the major world producers of meats, exporting to diverse countries, and it is also one of its major consumers, which shows the efficacy of the sanitary standards that act from the field up to the final product.

Few farmers understand the importance of the microbiota for the development and health of animals throughout their lives, and how this influence on the pathogens controls. This process is influenced by several factors, such as post-weaning stress, change of liquid diet to solid diet, quality nutritional. The first’s colonizations will define functional efficiency, nutrient absorption capacity, and the development of the immune system throughout their lives. To select beneficial microorganisms that must multiply in the intestines and inhibit the multiplication of the pathogenic bacteria that cause inflammatory is one of the key points to benefit the animals because the pathogens cause irreversible damage to the intestinal villi.

There are several lists of probiotics, organic acids, plant extracts, prebiotics, etc., which will act directly on pathogens or, indirectly, modulating the microbiota and the immune system response, improving intestinal integrity, etc. The yeast cell wall (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is one of the solutions that can help in the reduction of contamination and prevention of the problem. The yeast cell walls that are a 100% natural ingredient are used in animal nutrition due to their prebiotic and immunostimulant action, helping in the reduction of antibiotics.

The yeast culture can be originated from the ethanol, brewer’s or baker’s/primary fermentation process. For many years the strains were highlighted as the major important factor
in processing. Today we know that more important than the yeast strain is the fermentation environment that will indeed provide fundamental differences in the final product’s composition. Based on this concept, ImmunoWall® stands out by being produced in a challenging environment in which during the sugar cane fermentation process to ethanol obtaining, the yeast culture pass through numerous fermentation cycles. It process makes the yeast cell wall much denser, resulting in higher carbohydrates rate and lower fat content in its composition, making it less digestible in the intestinal tract (Figure 1). The MOS is known for its ability to agglutinate pathogens (which have type 1 fimbriae), such as several gram-negative strains (E. coli and Salmonella). The MOS provides a binding site for pathogens to prevent colonization of the intestinal epithelium and these agglutinated bacteria will be excreted along with the indigestible part of the fiber. The β-Glucans are known as modulators or stimulants of the immune system because when they come in contact with phagocytes, which recognize β-1,3 and 1,6 bonds, they stimulate them to produce certain cytokines that initiate a chain reaction to induce immunomodulation and improve the responsiveness of the innate immune system.

The higher β-Glucans concentration, the lower is cell wall degradation in the gastrointestinal tract, that is, the better its efficiency as "functional fiber" Yeast cell wall has a BG: MOS ratio close to 2: 1, while the primary yeast cell walls have a 1: 1 BG: MOS ratio (Figure 1).

The study from the Philippines published by Alcantara et al. (2015), the weaned piglets with 28 days of age were challenged with E. coli (oral, 9.8 X 10 8 CFU/mL) and divided into two groups, control and supplemented with YCW (ImmunoWall® from ICC Brazil Company, at 2 kg/MT). The supplemented group presented an improvement in the intestinal integrity (Table 1), decreased the diarrhea frequency, E. coli count in jejunum (-33%) and feces (-66%), and resulted in few bacteria adhered to the surface of the villi (Figure 2 and 3), compared to the control group. These results show that the yeast cell wall has an effective action against pathogenic microorganisms and consequently improves the intestinal health of the animals.

Table 1. Piglets intestinal integrity parameters after 7 and 14 post-challenge.

*E. coli was inoculated (9.8 X 10 8 CFU/mL) on the first day of the experiment. **Values with different letters are significantly different at the 95% confidence level. 1, 2 – significance compared to the time of slaughter and compared to baseline. a, b – significance compared between treatments in each slaughter day.

The concern with the quality and food safety of ingredients and additives used in animal feed is a global and irreversible trend, considering that the end consumer is becoming more aware of the relation between "nutrition and health," opting for increasingly healthier foods. ImmunoWall®, aside from being a natural additive, has proven to be a viable solution in low dosages for improving, pathogens control, intestinal health, and food safety, resulting in an excellent cost/benefit ratio.