Effect of dietary Ficus carica polysaccharides on the growth performance, innate immune response and survival of crucian carp against Aeromonas hydrophila infection
Introduction
Aquaculture, as an important components of animal production, is one of the fastest growing food production sectors worldwide [1,2]. Crucian carp, is one of the most breeding economic freshwater cultured fish species with the production of 2.75 million tons in 2020 in China [3]. With the increasing development of world aquaculture in recent decades, fish bacterial and viral diseases were becoming more and more obvious and serious [4,5]. Aeromonas hydrophila is a kind of opportunistic Gram-negative pathogens in fish [6], which could infect many fish species and cause huge economic losses in aquaculture [7,8]. It has been reported that among many pathogens, A. hydrophila is one of the foremost important pathogens causing motile aeromonad septicaemia and high mortality in crucian carp [9,10].
Over the past decade, chemicals and antibiotics had been indiscriminately used to control and prevent the disease outbreaks, which in turn had led to residual problems affecting the environment and human health [11]. Medicinal plants including Chinese herbal medicine, named as “green drug”, had been used for thousands of years in China and showed lots of potential against bacteria and virus infection in aquaculture [12,13]. More than sixty different medicinal plants included but not limit to Radix isatidis [14,15], Astragalus membranaceus [16], Glycyrrhiza uralensis [17], had been studied for improving fish health and disease resistance in Nile tilapia [16], yellow catfish [17], Japanese seabass [18], etc.
Plant polysaccharide, as an important medicinal plant product, played a major role in improving the growth rate and controlling fish diseases [19]. In addition to its beneficial effect as immunostimulants, the low cost and easy availability made it to be the ideal dietary supplement for fish [20]. Ficus carica polysaccharides (FCPS), as one of the most effective and important components in Ficus carica L., had been considered to be a beneficial immunomodulator and may be used in immunotherapy for animals and human [21]. However, there were little studies about the effect of FCPS used as immunostimulants in fish.
In the present study, we investigated the effects of four different dietary doses of FCPS (0.1%, 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.8%) on the growth performance, innate immune responses (including leukocyte phagocytosis activity, serum bactericidal activity, complement C3, lysozyme activity, superoxide dismutase activity and total protein level) and survival against A. hydrophila infection in crucian carp. The aim of this study was helpful to promote the application and development of Chinese herbs used as immunostimulants in aquaculture.
Section snippets
Fish, materials and bacteria strain
Healthy crucian carp (average weight 40.16 ± 0.15 g) were purchased from a fish farm in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China and acclimatized in a concrete culture tank (1.5 × 1.0 × 1.5 m) at a water temperature of 26–28 °C for two weeks before experiment. Ficus carica was purchased from Sichuan Ya'an Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, China and determined with 85.4% polysaccharide according to the anthrone-sulpho acid method. The bacterium A. hydrophila used in this study was isolated from crucian carp and
Growth performance
The effect of different dietary levels of FCPS on the growth performance of crucian carp was shown in Table 2. The results suggested that compared with control group, different dietary FCPS all significantly increased (p < 0.05) the final weight and weight gain, significantly reduced (p < 0.05) the feed conversion ratio, especially in 0.4% FCPS group. Besides, the survival rate of fish in 0.4% FCPS groups was also notably higher (p < 0.05) than that of control group, and slight higher than
Discussion
In recent decades, medicinal plants including Chinese herbal medicines, had been served as “green drug” and effective alternatives to chemicals sand antibiotics in preventing and controlling fish diseases [20]. Plant polysaccharides, as effective ingredients in many medicinal plants, played an important role in improving the growth rate and increasing survival against bacteria and virus infection [19]. Many plant polysaccharides including Astragalus spp. Polysaccharide [28], Porphyra yezoensis
Conclusions
Four different dietary levels of FCPS (0.1%, 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.8%) all had positive effects on the growth performance (final weight, feed conversion ratio and survival rate) of crucian carp, and improved the innate immune responses including leukocyte phagocytosis activity, serum bactericidal activity, lysozyme activity, complement C3 content, SOD activity and total protein level, and survival of crucian carp against A. hydrophila infection in different extent. Moreover, the effect on the innate
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Erlong Wang: Experiments design and execution, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, preparation. Xia Chen: Experiments execution, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Tao Liu: Formal analysis, Revise manuscript. Kaiyu Wang: Experiments design, Supervision, and Revise manuscript, All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Declaration of competing interest
Authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Teams in the University (No. IRT0848); The central government guide local scientific and technological development fund-Shenzhen Virtual University Park Free exploration basic research (No.2021Szvup115); Guangxi Natural Science Foundation Youth Fund Project (No.2021GXNSFBA196063/2021JJB130151); Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (No.2452020013/DK202105).
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These authors contributed equally to this work.