Prebiotics as functional ingredients: focus on Mediterranean fish aquaculture

Abstract

The increased demand for food fish, together with the banning of antibiotics for fish growth promotion and the greater public awareness for healthy fish production, led to an increased interest in the potential of functional feeds as health promoters. Prebiotics are functional ingredients that are used in fish, being reported to be associated with improvements in growth, feed efficiency, gut microbiota, digestive enzyme activities, gut morphology, immune status, disease resistance, intermediary metabolism, and stress responses. Those benefits may be related with the increase in gut beneficial bacteria, bacteria end‐products of prebiotic fermentation, or the interaction between prebiotics and pattern recognition receptors. Due to the reported prebiotic‐related positive effects in fish, a large amount of studies have been published in the last years, mainly focusing on prebiotics’ benefits to fish. Thus, the present review focuses on prebiotics’ potential as functional ingredients, focusing on their mechanisms of action. In addition, this review summarizes prebiotic effects in Mediterranean aquaculture fish, whose production has greatly increased in the last years. Finally, topics that deserve to be further explored, such as prebiotic effects related with fish age and size, and timing and duration of administration are suggested.

Growth performance, digestive enzyme activity and immune response of Japanese sea bass, Lateolabrax japonicus fed with fructooligosaccharide

“…The short‐chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced in prebiotics fermentation contribute to reduce gut pH and provide nutrients for the host, being in part responsible for the beneficial effects reported on fish fed prebiotics, such as improved growth, disease resistance and immunity (Guerreiro, Oliva‐Teles, & Enes, ). Several studies reported growth improvement when fish were fed prebiotics (Ringø, Dimitroglou, Hoseinifar, & Davies, ; Romero, Ringø, & Merrifield, ).…”

“…However, few studies were available regarding prebiotics use in this species. Furthermore, only a few studies about the prebiotic dosages in fish (Guerreiro, Oliva‐Teles, et al, ) and the adequate prebiotic dosage may depend on fish species, size, prebiotic type, timing and duration of prebiotic administration (Merrifield et al, ). Hence, the current study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary FOS supplementation on growth performance, digestive enzyme activities and immune response and thus assess the optional supplementation levels in L. japonicus .…”

Progress and perspectives of short‐chain fatty acids in aquaculture

“…Growth in aquaculture fish production now replaces capture fishery and has helped to meet the increase in human fish consumption (Guerreiro et al . ). A number of issues come up under culture conditions, including increasing growth performance, digestibility, survival rate, improving immune function as well as maintaining good health of the cultured animals (Hoseinifar et al .…”

“…According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the share of world fish production used for direct human consumption has remarkably increased from 67% in the 1960s to 87% (more than 146 million tonnes) in 2014 (FAO 2016). Growth in aquaculture fish production now replaces capture fishery and has helped to meet the increase in human fish consumption (Guerreiro et al 2018). A number of issues come up under culture conditions, including increasing growth performance, digestibility, survival rate, improving immune function as well as maintaining good health of the cultured animals (Hoseinifar et al 2015(Hoseinifar et al , 2016aNawaz et al 2018), all of which require studies to fully understand.…”

Effects of Jerusalem artichoke powder on the growth performance, nonspecific immunity, and gastrointestinal microbiota of sea cucumber

“…Inulin is a fructan‐type polysaccharide that consists of (2 → 1) linked β‐D‐fructosyl residues (degree of polymerization [DP] 2–60; DP av = 12). Inulin has been widely used to promote gut health in humans and animals by increasing the proliferation of bacteria (Guerreiro, Oliva‐Teles, & Enes, ; Roberfroid, ; Sasaki et al, ). In aquaculture, inulin supplementation can improve growth, immune system function, and gut health of shrimp, fish, and other aquatic animals (Cerezuela, Guardiola, Meseguer, & Esteban, ; Ganguly, Dora, Sarkar, & Chowdhury, ; Li, Liu, Dai, Li, & Ding, ; Nawaz, Javaid, Irshad, Hoseinifar, & Xiong, ; Ringø et al, ).…”