Roles of dietary taurine in fish nutrition

Abstract

Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid in fish nutrition. The present study addressed the practical application of examining published data on fish nutrition over the past 20 years, emphasizing the topic of taurine by using computational tools and their applications. According to the published articles, an increased linear growth of research occurred, with Japanese flounder being the most examined fish species. Dietary taurine supplementation has several beneficial effects in fish nutrition, such as survival, growth, feed utilization, protein and energy retention, intermediate metabolism, anti-oxidation, anti-stress, disease resistance, muscle texture and reproductive performance. Also, there are negative effects in some species. Dietary taurine exerted effects on several gene expressions and enzyme activities; these are important in taurine metabolism in fish. These genes and enzymes included taurine transporter (TauT), cysteine dioxygenase (CDO), cysteamine dioxygenase (ADO), cysteine sulfonate decarboxylase (CSD) and pretrypsinogen (Ptry). Plant protein-based diets with taurine supplementation are recommended because of the absence of taurine in plant protein.

Effects of taurine or sodium diformate supplementation to a low fishmeal plant‐based diet fed to European sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax )

“…These findings corroborate those previously reported for the species (Coutinho et al., 2017; Kotzamanis et al., 2020; Martins et al., 2019) and are also in line with several earlier studies reviewed by El‐Sayed (2014); Salze and Davis, (2015), and Sampath, Rathnayake, et al. (2020) for other fish species. The decline of lipid content in T‐fed fish in this study may indicate that T may reduce lipid absorption in fish fed soy proteins (Table 1) as reported by Salze and Davis, (2015) or may suggest the positive effect of T on lipid utilization and metabolism (Shen et al., 2018).…”

“…This finding suggests that T is an essential nutrient for this sea bass size. Similarly, several researchers have reported that dietary T‐supplementation to PMX‐ or for FM‐based sea bass feeds might have a positive effect on growth performance and health status (Martinez et al., 2004; Martins et al., 2019; Rimoldi et al., 2016; Saleh et al., 2020; Sampath, Rathnayake, et al., 2020; Sampath, Zhang, et al., 2020). In contrast, other studies demonstrated that low‐FM diets enriched with 1% T did not significantly enhance juvenile sea bass growth or feed utilization efficiency (Coutinho et al., 2017; Feidantsis et al., 2014; Kotzamanis et al., 2020).…”

“…In fish, T is mainly biosynthesized in the liver from cysteine and methionine through many enzymatic pathways. The capacity of this process varies greatly among species and depends on cysteine sulfinate decarboxylase (CSD) activity (Salze & Davis, 2015; Sampath, Rathnayake, et al., 2020). To the authors’ knowledge, no previous reports estimated CSD activity in European sea bass to determine its ability for endogenous T‐biosynthesis.…”

“…To the authors’ knowledge, no previous reports estimated CSD activity in European sea bass to determine its ability for endogenous T‐biosynthesis. However, numerous earlier reports showed that dietary T addition in fish nutrition has many beneficial effects on growth, survival, feed efficiency, energy and protein utilization, intermediate metabolism, disease resistance, anti‐stress, anti‐oxidation, muscle quality and reproductive performance (Sampath, Rathnayake, et al., 2020). Furthermore, T‐enriched diets significantly increased amino acid uptake, accelerated collagen production and improved muscle quality (Shen et al, 2018,2019).…”

“…Previous work suggests T could be added to feeds containing high levels of plant protein (El‐Sayed, 2014; Salze & Davis, 2015; Sampath, Rathnayake, et al., 2020; Sampath, Zhang, et al., 2020). T has also been researched as a functional feed additive for its positive effects on fish performance, immunity and intestinal health (reviewed by: El‐Sayed, 2014; Salze & Davis, 2015; Sampath, Rathnayake, et al., 2020). T‐supplementation is even recommended in FM‐based diets for a 5‐g cultured sea bass (Saleh et al., 2020).…”