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Spencer et al. [66] reported that when fed a diet that contained corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in a corn-soybean meal-based diet, exogenous -glucanase improved pig growth performance, and reduced the concentration of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and concentrations of xylan and pentosan in both ileal and fecal digesta. The authors attributed the reduction in fecal xylan and pentosan concentrations to the ability of -glucanase to hydrolyze xylan and pentosan, resulting in lower digesta concentrations of these polymers in the distal small intestine. Thus, supplementation of -glucanase to the diet increased apparent ileal energy digestibility, increased energy intake, and improved ileal energy efficiency, but had no effect on ileal CP digestibility [66]. Adding -xylanase to diets containing DDGS did not show any improvement in ileal digestibility of energy or protein for ileal- or total-tract-digestion [67]. Supplementation of these enzymes to diets containing corn-based DDGS also improved growth performance in nursery pigs (42 d feeding period) [68], finishing nursery pigs (42 d feeding period) [68], and finishing grow-finish pigs (56 d feeding period) [69]. In grow-finish pigs, supplementation of -xylanase improved ileal energy digestibility, but the magnitude of the effects on energy digestibility, as compared to pigs fed an NRC [70] recommended level of dietary CP, was not determined. The concentrations of arabinoxylan and arabinoxylans in porcine ileal digesta is a predictor of energy absorption in the small intestine [71], and pigs fed diets supplemented with -xylanase had lower concentrations of arabinoxylan and arabinoxylan in ileal digesta [68,69].

In conclusion, research on the impact of adding enzymes to diets containing increasing levels of corn co-products on nutrient digestibility or pig performance is limited. Some studies reported a positive impact on growth performance of finishing pigs, but the majority of research failed to show consistent trends with regard to nutrient digestibility coefficients. It is likely that carbohydrase supplementation to diets containing corn co-products may be of benefit to producers feeding diets containing high levels of corn co-products such as DDGS, corn gluten feed, corn gluten meal, and corn gluten meal - DDGS. 827ec27edc