Effects of dietary synbiotics supplementation methods on growth, intestinal health, non-specific immunity and disease resistance of Pacific white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei

The present study aims to investigate the effects of dietary synbiotics supplementation methods on growth, feed utilization, hepatopancreas and intestinal histology, non-specific immunity and microbiota community of Pacific white shrimp ( Litopenaeus vannamei ). A control diet was designed to contain 18% fish meal (CON), and then 3 g kg −1 synbiotics (Bioture, consisting of Bacillus subtilis , Saccharomyces cerevisiae , β-glucan and mannan oligosaccharide, etc) was supplemented to the control diet with three methods, directly adding in diets for pelleting (DAP), spraying diets after pelleting at once (SDA), spraying diets before feeding every day (SDE). Shrimp with initial body weight of 1.5 ± 0.12 g were fed one of the four diets for 56 days. The results showed that dietary synbiotics significantly increased the weight gain (WG), apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) of crude protein (CP) and dry matter (DM), hepatopancreatic protease activity and decreased feed conversion ratio (FCR) ( P < 0.05). Among the three synbiotics-added diets, SDE group showed the best growth with significantly higher WG than DAP group ( P < 0.05). Serum activities of total superoxide dismutase, catalase, acid phosphatase, lysozyme and alkaline phosphatase of synbiotics-added groups were significantly higher, and serum malondialdehyde level was significantly lower than those of the control ( P < 0.05). The intestinal villus width and villus number were also increased by the supplementation of synbiotics. The cumulative mortality was reduced in the three synbiotics-added groups after challenging with Vibrio parahaemolyticus ( P < 0.05), and SDE group showed a significantly lower mortality than the control and DAP groups ( P < 0.05). In intestinal microbiota composition, the abundance of Lactococcus tended to increase and Vibro tended to decreased in SDA and SDE groups. In conclusion, dietary synbiotics improved the growth, feed utilization, intestine health and non-specific immunity of Pacific white shrimp, and spraying synbiotics on diet presented better performance than adding synbiotics in diet for pelleting. • Dietary synbiotics improved the growth performance, intestinal health, non-specific immunity and disease resistance of Pacific white shrimp. • Post-spraying synbiotics on diets showed better performance than directly adding synbiotics in diet for pelleting. • Post-spraying synbiotics everyday obtained higher probiotics reservation.