1. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of multi-carbohydrase enzymes (MC) on net energy (NE), performance and gene expression in Cobb 500 broilers fed diets containing different levels of soluble and total arabinoxylan (sAX/tAX) ratios.
2. The study employed a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments, with factors including with or without MC and three ratios of sAX/tAX: high (HS, 27.3%), intermediate (IS, 21.3%) and low (LS, 15.7%).
3. Six dietary treatments were formulated, with each diet replicated five times in the calorimetric study (Experiment 1) and eight times for a floor pen feeding trial (Experiment 2).
4. Experiment 1 showed significant (P < 0.01) MC × sAX/tAX interactions for apparent metabolisable energy (AME) and NE. These interactions indicated that the supplemental MC increased AME only in the HS diet, and NE in the HS and LS diets.
5. Experiment 2 results showed MC × sAX/tAX interactions for feed conversion ratio (FCR, P < 0.01) and ileal digesta viscosity (P < 0.05), demonstrating that MC lowered FCR only in the LS-fed birds, and reduced digesta viscosity only in the HS-fed birds. Apparent ileal digestible crude protein (AID CP) was negatively correlated with ileal digesta viscosity (r = -0.735, P < 0.001), which suggested that increasing ileal digesta viscosity reduced AID CP
6. A significant (P < 0.05) MC × sAX/tAX interaction was observed for duodenal COX III mRNA gene expression, which indicated that this gene was upregulated in the IS-fed birds relative to the HS-fed birds, but only when MC was added. This gene was downregulated (P < 0.05) in the muscle in the presence of MC application in all diets.
7. The results from this study showed that supplemental MC can improve NE and FCR in birds fed diets containing the low sAX/tAX ratios.