Fig. 3
Gut health parameters in postweaning pigs fed with control and yeast diets. Panel a Boxplot showing comparison of colonic crypt depth (CD) measurements between the control and yeast group at day 7 PW and day 14 PW coloured and denoted by the diet and day (7.C controls day 7 PW pink, 7.Y yeast day 7 PW dark cyan, 14.C controls day 14 PW pink,14.Y yeast day 14 PW dark cyan). MWW test p-values are provided above the boxes. Panel b Representative section of colon mucosal crypts from the control group at day 14 PW (HID-AB stain, scale bar 250 μm). Panel c Representative section of colon mucosal crypts from the yeast group at day 14 PW (HID-AB stain, scale bar 250 μm). Panel d: Principal coordinate analysis illustrating contribution of Spirochetes relative abundance, colonic butyrate concentration, and 16S rRNA gene richness to the colonic crypt depth. The individual observations and the correlation circles are coloured by the diet (controls pink, yeast dark cyan). The adjusted R2 is given at the right top corner. Panel e: Histopathological assessment of the colon mucosa, evaluating epithelial damage (ED), number of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs), presence of crypt abscess (CA), and infiltration of leukocytes neutrophils (N), macrophages (M), lymphocytes (L), eosinophils (E), in addition the number of piglets that were diagnosed with a very mild or mild colitis (DI). The horizontal stacked bar plot shows the number of animals with none (0), very mild (1), mild (2), or moderate histopathological changes