Abstract
One important feature of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is its high leucine:lysine ratio, which can inhibit chicken growth by causing branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) antagonism. The current study was conducted to investigate the effects of BCAA imbalance of inclusion of DDGS and whether additional dietary valine and isoleucine could alleviate the negative effects in broilers. A total of 640 0-d-old male Cobb 500 broilers were allocated into 4 treatments with 8 replicates and reared until d 42. The four different dietary groups were as follows: 1) control (CON) group (corn-soybean meal-based diet); 2) 30% DDGS (30D) group (replacing soybean meal with 30% DDGS); 3) 30D + additional valine and isoleucine (30DB) group; and 4) the group of 30DB + additional valine and isoleucine to provide the same leucine:valine and leucine:isoleucine ratios as the CON group (30DBB). The analyzed leucine:lysine ratios of the CON group were 1.36/1.41/1.46 (starter/grower/finisher phase), whereas the average leucine:lysine ratios of the 30% DDGS groups were 1.61/1.70/1.78 (starter/grower/finisher phase). The 30% DDGS groups (30D, 30DB, and 30DBB) negatively affected body weight (BW) from d 7 to 42 and BW gain (BWG), feed intake, carcass weight, breast muscle weight, and jejunal and ileal villus height:crypt depth during the overall period (d 0 to 42) (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the 30% DDGS groups significantly altered expression levels of jejunal tight junction proteins, breast muscle mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway-related genes, BCAA catabolism genes, and AA transporters compared to the CON (P < 0.01). The 30% DDGS groups showed differences in beta-diversity indices compared to the CON group (P < 0.05). The 30DBB group showing the lowest d 21 and 42 BW and overall BWG had the largest differences compared to the CON group in most measurements. In conclusion, excessive replacement of soybean meal with DDGS can significantly increase leucine levels, which may negatively affect chicken growth. Additionally, inappropriate ratios of valine and isoleucine can further decrease growth performance.