Table 6.

Effects of dietary marine-derived polysaccharides (MDP) on jejunal morphology and digestive enzyme activity in late-phase laying hens after 6 wk feeding trial.

Items	Dietary MDP levels (mg/kg)				SEM1	P-value
	0	1,000	2,500	5,000		Linear	Quadratic
Jejunal morphology
Villus height, μm	812.65a	916.02b	927.82b	923.93b	25.00	0.021	0.076
Crypt depth, μm	292.16	262.85	262.51	297.88	16.24	0.830	0.104
Villus height: crypt depth	2.78a	3.49b	3.60b	3.11a,b	0.17	0.214	0.013
Jejunal digestive enzyme activity, U/mg prot
Trypsin	32.97	33.76	33.84	35.52	1.40	0.265	0.766
Amylase	21.33	21.50	21.66	21.53	0.83	0.846	0.860
Protease	55.32	49.57	53.12	50.05	2.43	0.302	0.600

^a,bMeans in the same row with different letters are significantly different at P < 0.05.

¹SEM, standard error of mean.