Aquaculture America 2024

February 18 - 21, 2024

San Antonio, Texas

GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND mRNA EXPRESSION OF INTESTINAL AMINO ACID TRANSPORTERS IN TILAPIA O. niloticus FED DIFFERENT DIETARY PROTEINS

 Zenith Gaye A. Orozco-Bautista*, Vhey Casison

 

Institute of Biology

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Quezon City, Metro Manila

1101 Philippines

zaorozco@up.edu.ph

 



 Feeding trial was conducted to compare the growth performance, amino acid profile, nutrient digestibility and hepatic and intestinal morphologies of ( O. niloticus) fed formulated diets containing either fishmeal (FM), soybean meal (SBM), or protein-enriched copra meal PECM® as the main protein source. The diets were fed to fish with an initial weight of 28.86±1.7 g for 118 days  in an indoor RAS. T he mRNA expression of  peptide amino acid transporters slc15a1a and neutral amino acid transporter slc6a19 were also examined in the anterior, mid and posterior intestine of tilapia .

Results showed that PECM® -fed fish exhibited 50% slower specific growth rate and reduced body condition factor than FM or SBM-fed fish (Table 1) . Although a decrease is also noticeable in other growth parameters measured, these  did not vary significantly  among the three  diets including  feed conversion and protein efficiency (p<0.05) . Overall protein digestibility of diets was high (90.90±2.98%) and unaffected by plant ingredients. No diet-related histopathology was detected in the intestine and liver .

 It was hypothesized that the amino acid transporters which are responsible for the absorption of  digested proteins  in the intestine of fish shall be influenced by dietary changes. Results showed that slc15a1a and slc6a19 responded differently to the dietary treatments .  A spatial expression in the intestinal length was also observed. The mRNA expression might be associated with the amino acid profile of each dietary protein source.