Effects of dietary Macleaya cordata extract inclusion on transcriptomes and inflammatory response in the lower gut of early weaned goats

Abstract The phytobiotic Macleaya cordata extract (MCE) has been widely used as a natural growth promoter in livestock production to alleviate intestinal inflammatory response. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary MCE inclusion on the transcriptomes and changes of immune function in the intestinal tract of early weaned goats. Twelve kid goats (with an average age 30 ± 2 d after birth) were selected and randomly assigned to the control group (CON, providing starter feed) and MAC group (starter feed with MCE at 0.3 g/d), and were harvested at d 46 of the experiment to collect ileal and colonic tissue samples for subsequent analyses. Colonic transcriptome analyses showed upregulated differential expressed genes (DEGs) mainly enriched in immune related processes including TNF signaling pathway, phagosome and NF-κB signaling pathway, however, downregulated DEGs involved in pancreatic secretion and bile secretion. To validate the DEGs mentioned above, we performed quantitative real-time PCR to determine the expression of genes in Toll-like receptor 4 signaling pathway (including TNF and NF-κB signaling pathway). Dietary MCE inclusion only affected (P