Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Technology to Predict Trypsin Inhibitor in Soybean Meal

Soybean meal is the most important source of dietary protein in many world areas, providing digestible amino acids for poultry and swine. The quality of soybean meal and therefore its nutrition value vary, which could lead to under or overfeeding of animals if it is not accounted for. Trypsin inhibitor (TI) is one of the most critical anti-nutritional factors present in soybean meal. It inhibits the activity of endogenous trypsin, reducing amino acid digestibility of poultry and swine diets. Over 800 soybean meal samples from different countries and world areas were analyzed for TI by wet chemistry and the levels of TI were found to be highly variable. The wet chemistry TI assay is labor intensive, time consuming, and expensive. The Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy technology was utilized to develop prediction equations to analyze TI levels in soybean meal rapidly. The impact of TI level on amino acid digestibility and the digestibility improvement with dietary supplementation of protease CIBENZA® DP100 were quantified with in vivo poultry and swine digestibility trials. The NIR technology to predict TI in soybean meal and its impact on amino acid digestibility of diets combined with the protease CIBENZA® DP100 technology to improve amino acid digestibility are valuable tools to manage variation in soybean meal quality, achieve precision feeding, and improve animal performance and production efficiency.