Effects of dietary L‐lysine supplementation on growth, body composition and muscle‐growth‐related gene expression with an estimation of lysine requirement of GIFT tilapia

An 8-week feeding trial was conducted with extruded practical diets containing 320 g/kg of crude protein from plant-based sources to determine the effects of L-lysine on growth performances, muscle-growth-related gene (myoD, myogenine and myostatin) expression and haemato-biochemical responses in juvenile genetically improved farmed tilapia (GIFT). Five isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets were formulated to contain graded levels of lysine (14.3, 16, 17.5, 19 and 20.5 g/kg of diet). Each diet was randomly assigned to triplicate groups of 30 juvenile fish (5.2 ± 0.1 g), which were fed thrice a day (9:00, 13:00 and 17:00 hr). Maximum growth performances were observed in fish fed with lysine at 19 g/kg of diet. There was no significant (p > .05) effect on whole-body composition and amino acids profile by dietary lysine supplementation. Significant (p < .05) changes were observed in relative expression of muscle-growth-related genes namely myoD and myogenine and in plasma metabolites by dietary lysine supplementation. In contrast, the relative expression of myostatin was not affected by dietary lysine supplementation. Broken-line regression analysis and second-order polynomial regression analysis of weight gain and N gain against dietary lysine levels showed that the dietary lysine requirement for juvenile GIFT tilapia was 18–18.3 g/kg of diet and 19.3–19.5 g/kg of diet, respectively.