Dietary Nanocurcumin Impacts Blood Biochemical Parameters and Works Synergistically with Florfenicol in African Catfish Challenged with Aeromonas veronii

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of dietary supplementation of nanocurcumin (NCur = 150 ppm) in African catfish feed for 15 days along with two doses of florfenicol—a therapeutic dose (FFC1 = 10 mg/kg.BW) and a high dose (FFC2 = 30 mg/kg.BW). Serum biochemical parameters and histopathological changes in liver and kidney tissues were determined post-feeding. Additionally, fish were experimentally challenged with a virulent strain of Aeromonas veronii to explore the fish’s capacity to resist infections. Results indicated that the serum level of total protein was significantly elevated in the FFC2 + Ncur group compared with control, Ncur, and FFC2 groups. Total protein level was also higher in FFC1 + Ncur compared with that of the FFC1 group. Moreover, feeding NCur, FFC1 + Ncur, and FFC2 + Ncur resulted in a significant increase in globulin levels compared to control, FFC1, and FFC2-Fed groups. However, the albumin level was unaffected. Serum levels of AST, ALT, ALP, and urea significantly increased in FFC2-fed fish compared to controls indicating liver damage. The higher dosage of FFC2 induced histological alterations in the liver and kidney architecture, represented by a rupture of the central vein, cytoplasmic vacuolation, hepatocytes necrosis, and severe inflammation. Surprisingly, NCur inclusion improved most of the altered biochemical parameters and mitigated FFC-induced histological damage in the hepatic and renal tissues. Similarly, fish that were fed a combination of both FFC and Ncur showed a higher resistance when exposed to A. veronii infection, as the mortality rates were significantly lower than those of the control group. Our findings indicated that incorporating NCur into the diet can have multiple benefits for the sustainable aquaculture of African catfish. These advantages encompass mitigating drug-induced damage to the liver and kidney tissues, augmenting the therapeutic efficacy of FFC in a synergistic manner and providing protection against A. veronii infections.

Dietary Curcumin Nanoparticles Improve Growth Performance, Oxidative Status and Immune Response of European Seabass (Dicentrarchus Labrax)

“…Dietary inclusion of CURNPs (100 or 150 mg/kg) enhanced growth indices (FBW, WG%, DWG, RGR) and improved feed utilization of D. labrax. The obtained results coincided with studies reporting the positive effects of CURNPs on the growth metrics and feed utilization in O. niloticus (Eissa et al, 2022;Elabd et al, 2023), C. carpio (Abdel-Tawwab & Abbass, 2017Pirani et al, 2021), and African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) challenged with Aeromonas veronii (Mansour et al, 2023). The group of D. labrax that received the high dose of CURNPs exhibited a greater growth performance and feed utilization.…”

“…However, many studies have revealed that CURNPs can decrease the hepatic enzymes in various fish species after feeding trial (Eissa et al, 2023;Eissa et al, 2022), an effect that wasn't observed in our study. Given the normal organ function parameters reported in this study, it could be concluded that CURNPs were safe in D. labrax and that the hepatoprotective role of CUR and its nano form could be observed when the fish is challenged with pathogenic microbes, such as Aspergillus flavus (Eissa et al, 2023;Eissa et al, 2022), Streptococcus agalactiae (Alhawas et al, 2023) and Aeromonas veronii (Mansour et al, 2023).…”

“…CURNPs inclusion in fish diets resulted in considerable enhancement of IgM, LYZ, and phagocytic activity as previously reported (Alhawas et al, 2023;Elabd et al, 2023). CURNPs dietary supplementation enhanced phagocytic activity and IgM in O. niloticus (Abdel-Ghany et al, 2023) and C. gariepinus (Mansour et al, 2023). The immunostimulatory function of CURNPs might be attributed to its ability to promote LYZ synthesis pathways along with redox homeostasis (Abdel-Ghany et al, 2023).…”