Dietary Sodium Butyrate Supplementation Attenuates the Detrimental Effects of High‐Fat Diets on Growth Performance, Liver Health, and Disease Resistance in Grass Carp

Abstract

An 8‐week experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of sodium butyrate (NaBT) inclusion in high‐fat (HF) diets on growth performance, liver health, and disease resistance in Grass Carp Ctenopharyngodon idella. Three diets (Control diet containing crude lipid at 58 g/kg, HF diet with 108‐g/kg crude lipid, and NaBT diet with 108‐g/kg crude lipid and 1‐g/kg NaBT) were randomly assigned to nine tanks with 30 fish (9.50 ± 0.06 g) in each tank. After the feeding trial, disease resistance was assessed by injecting the fish with Aeromonas hydrophila. Compared to the Control diet group, the HF diet group showed lower specific growth rate, feed efficiency, and survival rate (15.7%) after the A. hydrophila challenge; significantly higher activity levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase in plasma; higher malondialdehyde content; higher messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of interleukin‐8, cysteinyl aspartate specific protease (caspase) 9, and caspase 3; lower activity level of glutathione peroxidase; and lower mRNA expression of nuclear factor erythroid 2‐related factor 2 in liver. However, the NaBT diet significantly increased fish growth performance and survival rate (39.7%) after the A. hydrophila challenge and reduced hepatic oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis compared to the HF diet. In conclusion, NaBT can ameliorate the detrimental effects of HF diets on fish growth performance and fish health.

Effects of sodium butyrate on growth performance, antioxidant status, inflammatory response and resistance to hypoxic stress in juvenile largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)

“…Fang et al (78) and Ullah et al (82) found that SB reduced the HSI, which is consistent with the results of the present study, and may be related to the reduction of lipid content in the livers of largemouth bass by sodium butyrate. As in the present study, SB reduced TG content in the liver of largemouth bass (79), and additional SB supplementation reduced TG in grass carp on a high-fat diet (80). However, the underlying mechanism of sodium butyrate's effects on lipid metabolism in aquatic animals remains to be elucidated.…”

Transcriptional Inhibition of AGPAT2 Induces Abnormal Lipid Metabolism and Oxidative Stress in the Liver of Nile Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus

“…Hepatic lipid deposition often occurs in cultured fish, and is closely related to metabolic disorders [ 39 ]. In this experiment, the TC and TG levels in the liver were significantly higher in the AGPAT2 knock-down group than in the control groups.…”