Effects of dietary propolis supplementation on growth performance, immune responses, disease resistance and body composition of juvenile eel, Anguilla japonica

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary propolis supplementation on growth performance, immune responses, disease resistance and body composition of juvenile eel, Anguilla japonica, in order to evaluate its bioavailability as a feed additive for this species. A total of 540 fish averaging 7.7 ± 0.22 g (mean ± SD) were randomly distributed into 18 tanks in groups of 30, and each tank was then randomly assigned to one of three replicates of six diets containing 0 (P 0 ), 0.25 (P 0.25 ), 0.5 (P 0.5 ), 1.0 (P 1 ), 2.0 (P 2 ) and 4.0 (P 4 ) % dietary propolis. At the end of 12 weeks of feeding trial, weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed efficiency (FE) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) of fish fed P 0.5 diet were significantly higher than those of fish fed P 0 , P 1 , P 2 and P 4 diets (P \ 0.05). These parameters were 148.9%, 0.72% day -1 , 94.4% and 2.9, respectively for fish fed P 0.5 diet. Serum lysozyme activity of fish fed P 0.5 (105.7 units mL -1 ) and P 1 (106.0 units mL -1 ) diets were significantly higher than those of fish fed P 0 , P 0.25 , P 2 and P 4 diets. Mucus lysozyme activity of fish fed P 1 (8.4 units 10 cm -2 ) diet was significantly higher than those of fish fed P 0 , P 2 and P 4 diets. Results indicated that the optimum dietary propolis supplementation levels could be 0.25-0.5% for optimum growth and feed efficiency, and 0.5-1% for enhanced immune responses and disease resistance in eel, A. japonica. This study may suggest that the dietary propolis level for the optimum immune responses could be higher than the level for the optimum growth of eel.

Effects of dietary Macsumsuk®supplementation on growth performance, haematological parameters, disease resistance and body composition of juvenile Nile tilapia,Oreochromis niloticusL.

“…To our knowledge, there is no available information on the effects of dietary Macsumsuk ® on haematological parameters of fish species. Similarly, the obtained results in HCT concerning the effect of Macsumsuk ® are supported by the findings of some researchers such as Bae et al (2012) who showed that HCT concentration of the juvenile eel, Anguilla japonica, decreased above the optimum level of dietary Propolis.…”

Evaluation of dietary yellow loess as an antibiotic replacer on growth, immune responses, serological characteristics and disease resistance in rainbow trout,Oncorhynchus mykiss

“…; Bae et al . ). Likewise, results from the challenge test clarified a better physiological condition thereby health for rainbow trout fed dietary yellow loess compared to control diet and similar with oxytetracycline.…”

“…Similar observations have been reported in various previous studies for dietary additives such as propolis (Bae et al . ), green tea extract (Hwang et al . ) and onion powder (Cho & Lee ).…”

Effect of propolis ethanol extract on myostatin gene expression and muscle morphometry of Nile tilapia in net cages

“…Propolis has been successfully used as a growth enhancer and immuno-modulator in several fish species (Abd-El-Rhman, 2009;Deng et al, 2011;Bae et al, 2012). Research has correlated its capacity as a growth enhancer to its antimicrobial, anti-parasitic, and immune-stimulant properties (Meurer et al, 2009;Segvic-Bubic et al, 2013;Uczay et al, 2014), although to our knowledge, no studies have investigated the effect of propolis on fish morphology and muscle gene expression.…”