No abstract

Aquaculture has been increasingly contributing to animal protein production during the last few decades. Tilapia is known as one of the highly valuable fish cultured in wide geographical areas in several countries as a source of animal protein including Egypt. Tilapia has the merit of tolerance to a wide range of environmental conditions and ability to utilize food from the lowest trophic levels. The intensification of aquaculture production is usually challenged by infections including bacterial and parasitic burdens, which obligates the use of chemicals and antibiotics to control disease outbreaks. The injudicious use of antibiotics inevitably led to expansion of resistance, mutant pathogenic strains and detrimental effects to fish and consumer health.Therefore, it is imperative to find alternative ecofriendly sources as prebiotics and probiotics which can improve fish health, performance, and immunity without any side effects to the fish themselves or the consumer health. Prebiotics are known as a group of non-digestible food ingredients which encourage the growth of advantageous microorganisms in the gastro-intestinal tract. Like probiotics and synbiotics, inclusion of prebiotics as feed supplements into diets of farmed fishes is usually accompanied by immunomodulation and increased resistance of fish against serious bacterial agents as Aeromonas hydrophila infection. The current review article focuses on the potential effects of probiotics and MOS-containing prebiotics on health status, immune response and survivability of farmed fishes specially referring to Nile tilapia.Fish.

Background: Strokes due to Cardioembolic causes are the most severe in ischemic stroke subtypes. LAA flow patterns and function could be assessed accurately by TEE. The study aimed to present the importance of Transesophageal echocardiography in the assessment of LAA function and its relation to cardioembolic stroke. Methods: 120 patients were enrolled in the study and were subdivided into 3 subgroups, each group included 40 patients. Group A; patients had a stroke with normal sinus rhythm, Group B; patients had a stroke with atrial fibrillation, and Group C; normal control subjects. The study participants were evaluated by medical history, physical examination, standard 12-leads electrocardiogram, a transesophageal echocardiographic detailed evaluation of the LAA, and brain CT and/or MRI for patients with stroke. Results: both stroke patients with AF and sinus rhythm had significantly higher LAA mean orifice diameter and higher LAA length than control patients, significantly lower mean LAA medial wall tissue Doppler upward and downward motion velocities than control patients and that patients with stroke and AF had significantly lower mean LAA pulsed wave emptying and filling velocities than both patients with stroke and sinus rhythm and control patients. Presence of LAA thrombi, spontaneous echo contrast, and stroke recurrence were higher in stroked AF patients than stroke patients with sinus rhythm. Conclusion: increased LAA orifice diameter, LAA length, and reduced filling and emptying velocities and upward and downward motion velocities of the medial wall of LAA as detected by TEE are associated with stroke and cardio embolization.

The current study determined the influences of supplementing Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) basal diet with a prebiotic mixture on hematological, immune and biochemical parameters and growth performance. Two fish groups (Average weight 16.0 ± 0.5 g) were supplemented with prebiotic Fermos® at a rate of 0.5 and 1.0 g/kg diet and the third group which served as control received basal non-supplemented diet. The feeding trial continued for 6-weeks; and representative blood, serum as well as liver samples were collected from the three groups at the end of the third and sixth week. Differences in hematologic parameters, serum biochemical and oxidative indicators were determined. Results showed that Fermos® showed significant increase in hematological markers (mean corpuscular hemoglobin, packed cell volume concentrations, total leukocytic count, monocytes, and lymphocytes); and a significant decrease in (mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, basophils and heterophils counts). Fermos® increased serum albumin, globulin, and total protein. Biochemical parameters (AST and ALT levels) showed significant decrease at the end of the sixth week and third week, respectively in Fermos® groups, while glucose levels were significantly increased at the two sampling points for supplemented fish. All immune, antioxidants and growth parameters were improved in supplemented fish, compared to control group. Conceivably, our results demonstrated the beneficial effects of supplementing O. niloticus with Fermos® prebiotic on hematological parameters, immune and biochemical and growth profiles.