{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,28]],"date-time":"2026-08-28T04:18:13Z","timestamp":1787890693829,"version":"build-2784847793"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"17","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,26]],"date-time":"2026-08-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787702400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["32425052"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32425052"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["32402774"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32402774"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"award":["32425052"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32425052"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["32402774"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32402774"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Animals"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Vitamin D and its metabolite 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25-OH-D3) are central to calcium homeostasis, maternal skeletal integrity, and sow reproductive efficiency. This study compared vitamin D3 with an equivalent supranutritional dose of chemically or microbially produced 25-OH-D3 from day 90 of gestation to weaning. A total of 100 Large White \u00d7 Landrace sows were assigned to five treatments (n = 20): a basal control (25 \u00b5g\/kg vitamin D3), a VD3 group (basal + 50 \u00b5g\/kg vitamin D3), and three 25-OH-D3 groups (basal + 50 \u00b5g\/kg 25-OH-D3; QV1\u2013QV3). Reproductive traits, colostrum composition, serum vitamin D-related indices, antioxidant and cytokine profiles, pre-weaning piglet growth, femoral mineral concentration, intestinal morphology, and barrier-related gene expression were assessed. Compared with the control, QV2 increased litter weight gain from birth to day 14 by 9.8%, piglet serum 25-OH-D3 at weaning by 33.2%, and femoral calcium concentration by 14.4% (p &lt; 0.05); litter and average piglet weights at weaning were unchanged. Maternal 25-OH-D3 supplementation also altered the overall redox profile and several circulating inflammatory cytokines, increased jejunal and ileal villus height in the QV2 and QV3 groups, and upregulated selected tight-junction-related genes, including occludin and ZO-1, in a source- and intestinal-segment-dependent manner (p &lt; 0.05). Responses were source-dependent, and QV2 showed the strongest effects for selected endpoints; the data do not support class-wide superiority of biosynthesized preparations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ani16172674","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,26]],"date-time":"2026-08-26T08:11:15Z","timestamp":1787731875000},"page":"2674","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Comparative Evaluation of Chemically Synthesized and Biosynthesized 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 Supplementation in Sows During Late Gestation and Lactation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Bangxin","family":"Xue","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fengju","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Beijing Hilink Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Beijing 102206, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiale","family":"Bao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shengjie","family":"Shi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4327-7723","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shuang","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiangzhou","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinyu","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhekun","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9449-3894","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Guiyan","family":"Chu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiangfang","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6498-4761","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shimin","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Peng","family":"Qin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Ingredients Biotechnology (Yichang) Co., Ltd., Yichang 443000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chuanjiang","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Feed Industry Centre, National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural University, No. 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road, Beijing 100193, China"},{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhenhua","family":"Xue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Municipal Animal Husbandry General Station of Beijing, A15 Beiyuan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100107, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1174","DOI":"10.1017\/S1751731113000232","article-title":"Prevalence of lameness and claw lesions during different stages in the reproductive cycle of sows and the impact on reproduction results","volume":"7","author":"Pluym","year":"2013","journal-title":"Animal"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"txae087","DOI":"10.1093\/tas\/txae087","article-title":"A review of calcium and phosphorus requirement estimates for gestating and lactating sows","volume":"8","author":"Becker","year":"2024","journal-title":"Transl. 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