Dietary Effects of Sophorolipids on Nutrient Bioavailability and Intestinal Microenvironments in Broiler Chickens

Using antibiotics as growth promoter has been banned in poultry feed industry, thus various researchers try to seek an alternative to replace the growth-promoting antibiotics. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the growth performance via intestinal nutrient utilization and cecal microbial composition of broiler after dietary supplementation with most commonly using antibiotics, zinc bacitracin, and sophorolipid. A total of 180 1-day-old chicks were randomly assigned, and dietary treatment was as follow: CON, basal diet; ZB, 100 ppm of zinc bacitracin supplemented diet; and SPL, 250 ppm of sophorolipid supplemented diet. Their growth performance was evaluated and the samples of blood, small intestine, and ileal and cecal digesta were collected for biochemical, histological, and genomic analyses. The body weight and average daily gain of 7-day-old chicks were higher in ZB and those in overall experimental period were improved by ZB and SPL supplementation (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). Their intestinal characteristics were not affected by dietary treatments in duodenum and ileum. Nonetheless, villus height was increased by SPL supplementation in jejunum (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). Moreover, dietary SPL supplementation could down-regulate the expression level of pro-inflammatory cytokine, <italic>IL-1β</italic> (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). mRNA levels of lipid and protein transporters did not differ among the treatments, however, relative expression levels of carbohydrate transporters, <italic>GLUT2 </italic>and <italic>SGLT1</italic> were increased in broiler chicken’s jejumum fed zinc bacitracin and sophorolipid supplemented diets (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). Dietary zinc bacitracin supplementation could increase the population of <italic>Firmicutes</italic> in phylum level, and the portion of <italic>Turiciacter</italic> in genus level. On the other hands, the portion of <italic>Faecalibacterium</italic> was increased by dietary SPL supplementation compared to the other treatments. Our findings suggest that SPL supplementation improves growth performance through enhanced carbohydrate utilization capacity via improvement of gut morphological status and modulation of the cecal microbial population of broilers.