The tolerance and safety assessment of taurine as additive in a marine carnivorous fish, Scophthalmus maximus L.

Abstract

The effects of dietary taurine on growth performance, liver and intestine morphology, serum physiological and antioxidant parameters, serum thyroid hormone level, muscle taurine content and fatty acid composition of turbot were first evaluated, for the safe utilization in marine fish feed and for human food safety. Four experimental diets were formulated to contain 0, 10, 50 and 100 g/kg taurine. Each diet was randomly assigned to six replicates of 30 juvenile turbot (initial mean weight of 7.46 g). The feeding trial lasted for 10 weeks. The growth performance of fish was significantly enhanced by 10 g/kg dietary taurine. The integrity of the distal intestine was impaired and the absorptive surface was found to be significantly reduced by 100 g/kg dietary taurine. The obvious pathological changes in liver were observed in fish fed 100 g/kg taurine. Dietary taurine with 10 and 50 g/kg significantly increased the activities of serum superoxide dismutase, lysozyme and thyroid hormone. The taurine content in muscle was found to be significantly increased by dietary taurine; however, no significant differences were observed among taurine‐supplemented treatments. This study suggested that 10 g/kg taurine was safe in turbot feed, and fivefold of safety margin was obtained.

Can dietary with a taurine supplement improve lipid utilization, growth performance, haemolymph parameters and immune responses of white shrimp ( Litopenaeus vannamei )?

“…In this study, increases in dietary lipids and taurine supplements resulted in significant increases in lipid contents of whole body and muscle of white shrimp, showing excess dietary lipids deposited in the tissue, which was similar to the previous studies of dietary lipid levels on white shrimp (Hu et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2018) and taurine supplements in the diet on white shrimp (To & Liou, 2021;Yue et al, 2013). We did not analyse lipid content in the hepatopancreas of white shrimp in the present study, but a previous study reported that lipid content in the whole body was related to the HSI value, which meant that the high HSI value of white shrimp recorded high lipid content in the whole body because most lipids of white shrimp were stored in the hepatopancreas (Xu et al, 2018).…”

Taurine supplementation enhances the replacement level of fishmeal by soybean concentrate in diets of juvenile Pacific white shrimp ( Litopenaeus vannamei Boone, 1931)

“…Hepatosomatic index (HSI) was not significantly affected by a taurine supplement in this study. However, some other studies demonstrated that HSI significantly decreased with increasing taurine inclusion levels in diets in different fish species such as yellowhead catfish (Li et al, 2016), black carp (Zhang et al, 2018) and turbot (Liu et al, 2018). The present study showed a trend that HSI increased with decreasing levels of FM in the diet.…”

Roles of dietary taurine in fish nutrition

“…Supplementation of dietary taurine increases the utilization of plant protein in carnivorous fish (Zhang et al 2018). So, taurine improves the growth performance of several carnivorous fish, including turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) (Liu et al 2018;Wei et al 2018;Zhang et al 2019), red sea bream (Pagrus major) (Takagi et al 2010), Japanese flounder (P. olivaceus) (Kim et al 2017) and yellowtail (Seriola quinqueradiata) (Khaoian et al 2014;Nguyen et al 2015). Therefore, taurine is a vital nutrient for the abovementioned fish species especially in their rapid growth stage, where most CSD actions take place in the liver.…”

“…In most of the published studies, the positive effects of dietary taurine supplementation on the growth and feed utilization of fish were found, especially for the fish fed with plant protein-based diets. These fish species include white seabream (Diplodus sargus) (Magalhães et al 2019), turbot (Liu et al 2018;Sampath et al 2020;Wei et al 2018;Zhang et al 2019), rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) (Ferreira et al 2014), common carp (Cyprinus carpio) (Abdel-Tawwab and Monier 2017), snapper (Lutjanus colorado) (Hernandez et al 2018), black carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus) (Zhang et al 2018) and channel catfish (Peterson and Li 2018). Furthermore, it was found that dietary methionine supplementation was inefficient in the plant-based diets to overcome the taurine deficiency for the growth performance of meagre (Argyrosomus regius).…”