Just like inflammation has negative implications on humans, it also creates challenges for growing pigs. Inflammation’s impact on pig growth can have a sizable impact on profitability. Previous research has shown that serum vitamin A levels can be utilized as a biomarker to quantify inflammation.
Last summer, Macy Moore, a second-year student in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, pursued a research study to gain a better understanding of biomarker results and how producers and veterinarians can use and apply them within their operations and systems through the Swine Veterinary Internship Program.
“When sampled prior to weaning, serum vitamin A levels correlate with finishing performance,” Moore explained. “Farms are analyzed individually by looking at their sufficiency of the biomarker, so a greater number of high values in a distribution indicates greater sufficiency and less inflammation.”
Moore’s research goal was to determine if an update could be made to the current biomarker reference range according to health status and to update the current biomarker sampling protocol. She utilized 12 full litters of due-to-wean piglet serums from four different farms of varying porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) health status.
“We didn’t see any trends in the biomarker results based on health status and we also concluded from our results that six litters of due-to-wean piglet serums would be sufficient for analysis of biomarker status. We also looked at the biomarker results compared to their respective farm production records and saw that the biomarker results also didn’t trend in the same way the farm production records trended,” Moore said.
The biggest takeaway for Moore was that there may be potential for the use of the serum vitamin A biomarker as a production metric we look at to understand the quality of pig that is being produced on an individual farm basis.
“It is also especially helpful in understanding how different interventions or management changes are impacting inflammation status of pigs,” she added. “Biomarker testing is an innovative, new way to gauge the success of specific interventions and practitioners, or producers can use this method for efficient and cost-effective evaluation of inflammatory status on an individual farm basis.”
Moore was one of seven students competing for the 2024 Morrison Swine Innovator Prize. Her host for the summer internship was Suidae Health and Production and her sponsor was Elanco Animal Health.
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