Effects of dietary vitamin D₃ supplementation on the growth performance, tissue Ca and P concentrations, antioxidant capacity, immune response and lipid metabolism in <i>Litopenaeus vannamei</i> larvae

Abstract

Abstract An 8-week feeding trial was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary vitamin D 3 supplementation on the growth performance, tissue Ca and P concentrations, antioxidant capacity, immune response and lipid metabolism in Litopenaeus vannamei larvae. A total of 720 shrimp (initial weight 0·50 ± 0·01 g) were randomly distributed into six treatments, each of which had three duplicates of forty shrimp per duplicate. Six isonitrogenous and isolipidic diets were formulated to contain graded vitamin D 3 (0·18, 0·23, 0·27, 0·48, 0·57 and 0·98 mg/kg of vitamin D 3 , measured) supplementation levels. The results revealed that L. vannamei fed diet containing 0·48 mg/kg of vitamin D 3 achieved the best growth performance. Compared with the control group, supplementing 0·48 mg/kg of vitamin D 3 significantly increased ( P &lt; 0·05) the activities of catalase, total antioxidative capacity, alkaline phosphatase and acid phosphatase in serum and hepatopancreas. Expression levels of antioxidant and immune-related genes were synchronously increased ( P &lt; 0·05). Carapace P and Ca concentrations were increased ( P &lt; 0·05) with the increased vitamin D 3 supplementation levels. Further analysis of lipid metabolism-related genes expression showed that shrimp fed 0·48 mg of vitamin D 3 per kg diet showed the highest value in the expression of lipid synthesis-related genes, while shrimp fed 0·98 mg of vitamin D 3 per kg diet showed the highest value in the expression of lipolysis-related genes. In conclusion, the results of present study indicated that dietary supplementation of 0·48 mg/kg of vitamin D 3 could increase Ca and P concentrations, improve antioxidant capacity and immune response, and influence lipid metabolism in L. vannamei .

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