Phytase supplementation in poultry

Phytic acid or phytate is an anti-nutritional constituent of plant derived feeds ,which forms a wide variety of insoluble salts with minerals like phosphorus, calcium, zinc, magnesium and copper. Phytic acid is also known to form complex with protein and proteolytic enzymes (pepsin and trypsin). Because of lack of endogenous phytase enzyme, which hydrolyzes phytic acid, phosphorus, calcium, protein and other bound nutrients are biologically less available to poultry. Microbial phytase has great nutritional significance and ecological importance. Poultry diets supplemented with microbial phytase result in improved growth performance and increased digestibility and availability of phytate bound phosphors, calcium, zinc and copper. Microbial phytase supplementation has also been shown to increase ileal digestibility of crude protein and amino acids. The efficacy of supplemental microbial phytase depends on its rate of inclusion, dietary calcium and phosphorus ratio, vitamin D3, nature of diet, and age and genotype of birds. Thus, microbial phytase is an efficient tool to exploit the inherent nutritional potential of feedstuffs for economic and eco-friendly poultry production.