Lysophospholipids act as biological emulsifiers, dramatically improving the formation of micelles and hence facilitating digestion and absorption of fat. Therefore, lysophospholipids are more powerful nutrients absorption enhancer than dietary lecithin for aquaculture. A dietary emulsifer from Kemin AquaScienceTM containing optimized combinition of lysophospholipids, monoglycerides, and synthetic emulsifer was proven to be an efficient nutrient absorption enhancer. It has been found to increase digestibility and absorption of fat, protein and pigments, enhance growth performance, and improve intestinal health of aquatic animals in multiple trials. Studies conducted in shrimp and tilapia are covered in this paper, where feed formulation optimization and on-top supplementation were evaluated respectively.
A study was conducted to evaluate effects of the dietary emulsifier on partial fish oil replacement by soya oil in white shrimp (Litopenaeus vanammei) diets. Three treatments were included; diet with 2% fish oil as positive control, 1% fish oil and 1% soya oil as negative control, and diet with 1% fish oil and 1% soya oil supplemented with 0.1% dietary emulsifier as test diet. Results showed that partial replacement of fish oil by soy oil significantly (p<0.05) reduced the digestibility coefficient, production and weight gain of shrimp. However, supplementing the negative control diet with the dietary emulsifier helped reinstate the growth performance and keep comparable nutrient digestibility coefficients of shrimp to the level of the positive control diet. Also, there were no significant (p>0.05) differences on histology of shrimp hepatopancreas and immune parameters evaluated between test diet and positive control groups. An investigation of the effects of the dietary emulsifer (0.1% added on top of control diet) on nutrients digestibility and growth performance of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) was performed. Significantly (p<0.05) higher digestibility of gross energy (3% higher), protein (2% higher), lipids (2% higher), and phosphorus (10% higher) were observed when supplementing the dietary emulsifer than by control diet alone. Growth performance of juvenile tilapia, including weight gain and feed conversion rate, were significantly (p<0.05) increased in the treatment using dietary emulsifer compared to the control .
Lipid and protein components of feed are becoming increasingly costly and face issues on availability andhence solutions to enhance digestibility and absorption of these nutrients are beneficial to both economics and productivity of aquaculture. Based on both studies, it is concluded that incorporation of the dietary emulsifier containing optimized combinition of lysophospholipids, monoglycerides, and synthetic emulsifer in aquafeed can be applied both as a replacement strategy to optimize feed formulation for better economics, and as an on-top supplementation to enhance the growth and feed utilization.