Dietary synbiotics can help relieve the impacts of deltamethrin toxicity of nile tilapia reared at low temperatures

Abstract

The optimal water temperature for the normal growth of Nile tilapia is between 26 and 28 °C, and the toxicity of pesticides is strongly related to water temperature. An alternate approach to augmenting the resistance of fish to ambient water toxicity and low water temperature via synbiotic feeding was proposed. In this study, fish were allocated into four groups with 10 fish in each replicate, where they were fed a basal diet or synbiotics (550 mg/kg) and kept at a suboptimal water temperature (21 ± 2 °C). The prepared diets were fed to Nile tilapia for 30 days with or without deltamethrin (DMT) ambient exposure (15 μg/L). The groups were named control (basal diet without DMT toxicity), DMT (basal diet with DMT toxicity), synbiotic (synbiotics without DMT toxicity), and DMT + synbiotic (synbiotics with DMT toxicity). The results displayed upregulated transcription of catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and interferon (IFN-γ) genes caused by DMT exposure and synbiotic feeding when compared with the controls. Moreover, HSP70 and CASP3 genes displayed increased transcription caused by DMT exposure without synbiotic feeding. However, fish fed with synbiotics showed downregulated HSP70 and CASP3 gene expressions. The transcription of IL-1β and IL-8 genes were also decreased by DMT exposure, while fish fed synbiotics showed upregulated levels. DMT exposure resulted in irregular histopathological features in gills, intestine, spleen, and liver tissues, while fish fed synbiotics showed regular, normal, and protected histopathological images. Our results indicated that dietary synbiotics ameliorated histopathological damages in DMT-exposed tilapia through alleviation of oxidative stress and inflammation as well as enhancing the immunity.