Elsevier

Aquaculture

Volume 512, 15 October 2019, 734352
Aquaculture

Pleiotropic function of vitamin C on fatty acids in liver and muscle of juvenile grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2019.734352Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Liver moisture or muscle length decreased with dietary vitamin C increasement.

  • Vitamin C showed opposite effects on liver and muscle unsaturated fatty acids.

  • ACC and CPT1 might be primary targets of vitamin C.

  • The role of vitamin C on fatty acids was pleiotropic at low and high levels.

Abstract

To determine the effect of vitamin C (ascorbic acid, VC) on proximate composition, muscle indexes and fatty acids profiles, triplicate groups of 30 juvenile grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) were fed six experimental diets with graded levels of VC in a recirculating rearing system for 8 weeks. The results showed that liver moisture and fiber length were decreased with VC supplementation. Moreover, trend line analysis showed liver unsaturated fatty acids decreased at first and then increased along with dietary VC increasement. However, VC showed an inverse effect in muscle. Furthermore, histogram and trend line analysis showed ACC mRNA was in line with unsaturated fatty acids in both tissues, but CPT1 and leptin mRNA were inverse. Besides, PPAR-α, LPL and FAS mRNA abundance declined first and rose then in liver and muscle. Taken together, our data indicated that VC not only decreased liver moisture and fiber length, but also regulated liver and muscle unsaturated fatty acids content in a feedback way through fatty acid synthesis and metabolism related genes.

Introduction

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid, VC) is a crucial nutrient for all animals and plays a key role in enhancing growth, reproduction, innate immunity and resistance to various stressors (Roosta et al., 2014; Wan et al., 2014). Acting as a co-substrate, VC is vital for hydroxylase and oxygenase enzymes, which participate in the biosynthesis of pro-collagen, carnitine and neuro-transmitters that are necessary for the skin, cartilage and bone formation (Darias et al., 2011; Kraus et al., 2004). Through scavenging reactive oxygen species and regenerating antioxidant molecules, VC protects low density lipoproteins from oxidation and helps to avoid lipid membrane destabilization (Chien and Hwang, 2001; Padayatty and Levine, 2001).

As to aquatic animals, due to lack of L-gulonolactone oxidase, most teleost are unable to synthesize VC, making an exogenous source of VC indispensable in fish diets (Fracalossi et al., 2001). VC is habitually considered as an immunostimulant to release the excessive stress resulting from high-density aquaculture, leading the research on immunity enhancing and oxidation resistance effect of VC been deeply and extensively illustrated in fishes (Chen et al., 2015; Dawood et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2016b; Zhao et al., 2017). However, the study of VC on fatty acid profile characteristics in liver and muscle is still inadequate, not to mention the research on fatty acid synthesis and metabolism genes.

The grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) is not only a commercially important aquaculture species in China, but also the most highly consumed freshwater fish worldwide (He et al., 2017). Studies on adult grass carp revealed that VC possessed the ability of growth promoting and immunity enhancing (Xu et al., 2016a; Xu et al., 2016b). However, there still exists a gap between VC and the fatty acid profile in the liver and muscle of grass carp.

As early stages of growth are particularly sensitive to VC deficiency and rapid growth rate suggests higher vitamin requirements than adults, juvenile fish is more appropriate for related research (Imanpoor et al., 2017; Kolkovski et al., 2015). Hence, juvenile grass carp was utilized to investigate the effect of VC on the body proximate composition, muscle indexes and fatty acids composition of liver and muscle.

Section snippets

Experimental fish and feeding trial

Grass carp was purchased from a local commercial hatchery (Guangzhou, China) and acclimatized by feeding the commercial diet in the feeding facility of South China Agricultural University. After 2-week acclimation and 24 h starvation, 540 fish (3.39 ± 0.03 g) were randomly stocked into 18 experiment tanks (upper diameter: 75 cm, lower diameter: 65 cm, height: 80 cm, 500 L) at 30 fish per tank. Fish in triplicate were fed with their respective diets to apparent satiation three times daily (8:30,

Moisture and crude lipid

The effect of VC on moisture and crude lipid is shown in Table 2. Along with an increase of dietary VC concentration from 18.9 to 321.1 mg kg−1, the difference of liver moisture was not significant, but a dramatical decrease of fish fed diet containing 618.5 mg kg−1 VC (P < .05). Furthermore, the moisture in muscle and the whole body didn't differ among all groups. Similarly, there was no significant difference of crude lipid among all treatments in all tissues.

Muscle fiber diameter, length and shear force

Table 3 shows the effect of VC on

Discussion

Effect of VC on proximate composition of the whole-body or tissues may vary due to species. Graded levels of VC in diet leaded lipid contents increased in the whole-body and muscle of juvenile yellow drum Nibea albiflora (Wang et al., 2017). As to juvenile largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), the whole-body protein content was increased, but moisture decreased, in response to dietary VC supplementation (Chen et al., 2015). Moreover, the study on on-growing gibel carp (Carassius auratus

Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the funds of Guangdong Marine Economy Promotion Projects (MEPP) Fund (Grant Nos.# GDOE[2019]A26), Guangdong Provincial Special Fund For Modern Agriculture Industry Technology Innovation Teams, Department of Agriculture and Rurual Affairs of Guangdong Province (Grant Nos.# 2019KJ150), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.#31202007), Administration of Ocean and fisheries of Guangdong Province (Grant Nos.#A201601C08), and Guangdong Science and

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