Table 10.

Proximal and distal intestinal morphology and enterocyte proliferation of nursery pigs fed diets with increasing Corynebacterium glutamicum cell mass (CGCM) supplementation

	CGCM, %1					P-value
Item	0	0.7	1.4	2.1	SEM	Linear	Quadratic
Proximal2 jejunal tissue
Villus height, μm	509	447	481	444	27	0.190	0.649
Villus width, μm	121	118	117	116	6	0.451	0.890
Crypt depth, μm	257	239	277	264	46	0.439	0.878
VH:CD3	2.05	1.96	1.86	1.74	0.33	0.090	0.905
Ki-67+4, %	10.1	10.9	12.7	10.6	2.1	0.581	0.292
Distal5 jejunal tissue
Villus height, μm	307	327	291	386	31	0.165	0.233
Villus width, μm	97	97	96	106	5	0.189	0.288
Crypt depth, μm	262	277	281	288	15	0.257	0.796
VH:CD	1.17	1.23	1.05	1.39	0.11	0.357	0.214
Ki-67+, %	10.3	13.4	12.6	10.3	1.5	0.833	0.004

¹Four supplemental levels of CGCM (n = 32 total, n = 8 per supplemental level).

²Proximal jejunum: 1.5 m after the pyloric duodenal junction.

³VH:CD, villus height to crypt depth ratio.

⁴Ki-67⁺, enterocyte proliferation rate in crypt.

⁵Distal jejunum: 1.5 m before the ileocecal junction.