Effects of Different Dietary Vitamin E Levels on Growth Performance, Non-specific Immune Responses, and Disease Resistance against Vibrio anguillarum in Parrot Fish (Oplegnathus fasciatus)

We report nutritional physiology and non-specific immune responses of vitamin E in parrot fish for the first time. This study aimed to investigate the essentiality and requirements in diets based on growth performances, non-specific immune responses and a challenge test against Vibrio angullarum. Six casein-gelatin based semi-purified diets were formulated to contain six graded levels of DL-${\alpha}$-tocopheryl acetate (${\alpha}$-TA) at 0, 25, 50, 75, 100 and 500 mg/kg diet (designated as E0, E25, E50, E75, E100 and E500, respectively) and fed to triplicate groups of juvenile parrot fish for 12 weeks. The analyzed dietary concentrations of vitamin E were 0, 38, 53, 87, 119 and 538 mg/kg diet for E0, E25, E50, E75, E100 and E500, respectively. At the end of the feeding trial, growth performance and feed utilization of fish fed the E25 were significantly higher compared to that of fish fed the other diets. Liver ${\alpha}$-tocopherol concentration was significantly increased with an increase in dietary ${\alpha}$-TA in a dose dependent manner. No apparent clinical signs of vitamin E deficiency and mortality were observed in fish fed the basal diet for 12 weeks. Among the immune responses assayed, phagocytic (NBT assay) and myeloperoxidase activities were significantly increased with increment of dietary ${\alpha}$-TA levels. During the challenge test with V. anguillarum, E75, E100, and E500 diets resulted in higher survivals than E0, E25 and E50 diets. The findings of this study suggest that parrot fish require exogenous vitamin E and the optimum dietary level could be approximately 38 mg ${\alpha}$-TA/kg diet for normal growth and physiology. Dietary ${\alpha}$-TA concentration over 500 mg/kg could be required to enhance the nonspecific immune responses and improve the resistance of juvenile parrot fish against V. anguillarum.