Growth performance, antioxidant indexes, and the expression of genes were considerably promoted by dietary supplementation of alanyl-glutamine and vitamin E in juvenile marine medaka in seawater acidification by carbon dioxide

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to study the effect of different dietary supplementation of alanyl-glutamine dipeptide (AGD) and/or vitamin E (VE) on the growth performance, antioxidant indexes, and the expression of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPAR_Ɑ) genes in juvenile marine medaka (Oryzias melastigma) in seawater acidification. Seven groups of juvenile marine medaka in triplicate were studied in an ecosystem. One of them was in normal seawater (pH 8.1, pH control), and the others were in seawater acidification (pH 7.7) regulated by carbon dioxide (CO₂). The juveniles were separately fed for 10 weeks using one of six different diets. The six diets were one control diet (basic feed) without supplements and the other diets with different amounts of additional AGD and/or VE. The juveniles were sampled randomly for analysis of a whole fish in week 0 and week 10. The results showed that different dietary supplementation of AGD and/or VE could considerably promote the growth performance, antioxidant indexes, and the expression of GPx and PPARα genes of juvenile marine medaka in seawater acidification. The optimal diet was D4, with additional AGD 5 g and VE 50 IU per kg of dried feed.