Egg nutritional modulation with amino acids improved performance in zebrafish larvae

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 9;16(4):e0248356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248356. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

New and more efficient methods to sustainably intensify Aquaculture production are essential to attain the seafood demand for direct human consumption in the near future. Nutrition has been identified as one strategy of early exposure that might affect animal early development and later phenotype. This strategy may have positive consequences in the modulation of fish digestive physiology, which will correlate with higher performance outputs. Thus, improving fish digestive efficiency will lead to higher productivity and lower biogenic emission from aquaculture facilities, minimising the impact on the environment while increasing the biological efficiency. An innovative in ovo nutritional modulation technique based on low-frequency ultrasounds was used to enhance the transport of amino acids across the embryo membranes. An early stimulus with either arginine or glutamine, both involved in gut maturation, was applied in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos at 3.5 hours post-fertilization (hpf). At 22 days post-fertilization (dpf), growth performance, digestive enzyme activities and gut microbiota composition were analysed to evaluate the larval nutrition-induced metabolic plasticity and the effects on fish digestive efficiency. Results showed that fish survival was not affected either by the sonophoresis technique or amino acid supplementation. Final dry weight at 22 dpf was statistically higher in larvae from glutamine treatment when compared to the control even with lower trypsin activity, suggesting a higher nutrient digestion capacity, due to a slightly modulation of gut microbiota. Higher arginine supplementation levels should be tested as strategy to enhance growth at later developmental stages. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the efficiency of sonophoresis technique for in ovo nutritional modulation and suggests that in ovo glutamine supplementation might promote growth at later developmental stage through a positive microbiota modulation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acids / metabolism
  • Amino Acids / pharmacology*
  • Animals
  • Arginine / metabolism
  • Arginine / pharmacology
  • Drug Administration Routes / veterinary
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian / metabolism
  • Glutamine / metabolism
  • Glutamine / pharmacology
  • Larva / drug effects
  • Larva / metabolism*
  • Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / physiology
  • Phonophoresis / methods*
  • Zebrafish / embryology
  • Zebrafish / genetics
  • Zebrafish Proteins / metabolism

Substances

  • Amino Acids
  • Zebrafish Proteins
  • Glutamine
  • Arginine

Grants and funding

This study received Portuguese national funds from FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology through project ALG-01-0145-FEDER-029151 “PROLAR – Early metabolic programming in fish through nutritional modulation”, and UIDB/04326/2020. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for author CNG, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. SE acknowledges a FCT investigator grant (IF/00482/2014/CP1217/CT0005) funded by the European Social Fund, the Operational Programme Human Potential and FCT. The specific roles of all authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The commercial affiliation participating in the present study (SPAROS Lda.) did not participate in the research funding, the author GVP contributed to microbiota data analysis.