Effects of chlorogenic acid on growth, metabolism, antioxidation, immunity, and intestinal flora of crucian carp (Carassius auratus)

Xuexia Jin; Mengyuan Su; Yunxiang Liang; Yingjun Li

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.1084500

Effects of chlorogenic acid on growth, metabolism, antioxidation, immunity, and intestinal flora of crucian carp (Carassius auratus)

Front Microbiol. 2023 Jan 9:13:1084500. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1084500. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xuexia Jin¹, Mengyuan Su¹, Yunxiang Liang¹, Yingjun Li^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, College of Life Sciences and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
² Shenzhen Institute of Nutrition and Health, Huazhong Agricultural University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
³ Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

Abstract

In recent years, with the harm caused by the abuse of antibiotics and the increasing demand for green and healthy food, people gradually began to look for antibiotic alternatives for aquaculture. As a Chinese herbal medicine, leaf extract chlorogenic acid (CGA) of Eucommia ulmoides Oliver can improve animal immunity and antioxidant capacity and can improve animal production performance. In this study, crucian carp (Carassius auratus) was fed with complete feed containing 200 mg/kg CGA for 60 days to evaluate the antioxidant, immuno-enhancement, and regulation of intestinal microbial activities of CGA. In comparison to the control, the growth performance indexes of CGA-added fish were significantly increased, including final body weight, weight gain rate, and specific growth rate (P < 0.01), while the feed conversion rate was significantly decreased (P < 0.01). Intestinal digestive enzyme activity significantly increased (P < 0.01); the contents of triglyceride in the liver (P < 0.01) and muscle (P > 0.05) decreased; and the expression of lipid metabolism-related genes in the liver was promoted. Additionally, the non-specific immune enzyme activities of intestinal and liver tissues were increased, but the expression level of the adenylate-activated protein kinase gene involved in energy metabolism was not affected. The antioxidant capacity of intestinal, muscle, and liver tissues was improved. Otherwise, CGA enhanced the relative abundance of intestinal microbes, Fusobacteria and Firmicutes and degraded the relative abundance of Proteobacteria. In general, our data showed that supplementation with CGA in dietary had a positive effect on Carassius auratus growth, immunity, and balance of the bacteria in the intestine. Our findings suggest that it is of great significance to develop and use CGA as a natural non-toxic compound in green and eco-friendly feed additives.

Keywords: Carassius auratus; antioxidation; chlorogenic acid; immunity; intestinal flora; metabolism.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32170096) project (2662022SKPY001), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Cooperation Fund of Huazhong Agricultural University—Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen (CAAS) (SZYJY2021002).