Effects of Dietary Carbohydrate Levels on the Growth and Glucose Metabolism of Juvenile Swimming Crab, Portunus trituberculatus

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different carbohydrate levels on the growth performance, glycogen accumulation in tissue, enzyme activities, and expression levels of genes related to hepatopancreatic glucose and lipid metabolism and insulin signaling pathway in swimming crab, Portunus trituberculatus for 8 weeks. The results indicated that crabs fed with the 60.0 g kg-1 carbohydrate diet exhibited the highest final body weight (FBW), percent weight gain (PWG), and specific growth rate (SGR) among all treatments. FBW, PWG, and SGR significantly decreased when dietary carbohydrate levels exceeded 240.0 g kg-1. Light microscopy results showed that dietary excessive carbohydrate levels will lead to vacuole, hepatopancreatic tubule lysis, and lipid droplets in hepatopancreas. Expression levels of genes involved into glucose transport, glucose and lipid metabolism, and insulin-like metabolism in the hepatopancreas were significantly influenced by dietary carbohydrate levels. In general, the results of present study demonstrated that dietary optimal carbohydrate levels could not only improve PWG and SGR but also influence the expression of genes involved in glucose, lipid, and insulin-like metabolism. The optimal actual carbohydrate level was estimated to be 87.8-98.4 g kg-1 based on broken-line and second-order polynomial regression analysis between PWG against dietary carbohydrate levels for juvenile Portunus trituberculatus.