Effect of including purified jack bean lectin in a casein based diet on apparent and true ileal amino acid digestibility in growing pigs

The effect of including purified Jack Bean lectin (Concanavilin A) in enzymatically hydrolyzed casein (EHC) and regular casein (NC) diets on ileal endogenous amino acid (AA) flow and apparent and true ileal digestibility of AA was investigated in growing pigs. The inclusion of lectin did not influence apparent and true ileal digestibility of CP and AA, and endogenous flow of AA. Pigs fed the EHC based diets had lower apparent ileal AA digestibility than pigs fed the NC based diets, which can be attributed to differences in endogenous ileal AA flows. These data suggest that including purified Jack Bean lectin at the level of 266 mg/kg in a casein based diet did not influence ileal endogenous AA flow, as well as ileal digestibility of AA. Compared with the homoarginine method, the peptide-alimentation method yielded higher estimates of ileal endogenous AA flows, although these two methods yielded similar estimates of true ileal AA digestibility.