Effects of Lactobacillus pentosus combined with Arthrospira platensis on the growth performance, immune response, and intestinal microbiota of Litopenaeus vannamei.

Litopenaeus vannamei is one of the most productive shrimp species in the world. However, shrimp farming is suffering from adverse environmental conditions and disease outbreaks. Typically, Lactobacillus pentosus and Arthrospira platensis are used as substitutes for some antibiotics. In the present study, we assessed the effects of dietary supplements along with living bacteria or cell-free extracts of L. pentosus combined with A. platensis on the growth performance, immune response, intestinal microbiota, and disease resistance of L. vannamei against Vibrio alginolyticus. Shrimp fed L. pentosus live bacteria combined with A. platensis showed the best growth performance and lowest feed conversion rate. The supplementation diet with L. pentosus live bacteria and A. platensis could significantly enhance the trypsin activity in shrimp after the feeding trial. Given the lowest feed conversion rate in shrimp fed L. pentosus live bacteria combined with A. platensis, we reasonably speculated that the decrease in feed conversion rate may be related to the increase in trypsin activity. In addition, dietary cell-free extracts of L. pentosus combined with A. platensis enhanced the expression of immune-related genes after the feeding trial or challenge test. Moreover, results of the bacterial challenge test indicated that the shrimp fed cell-free extracts of L. pentosus combined with A. platensis diet resulted in the highest survival rate, which suggested that cell-free extracts of L. pentosus and A. platensis could improve the disease resistance against V. alginolyticus by up-regulating the expressions of immune-related genes. Dietary L.pentosus or A. platensis, or their combination, reduced the abundance of harmful bacteria, including Proteobacteria in shrimp intestine, which suggested that L. pentosus and A. platensis could improve the growth performance and health of shrimp by regulating the structure of the intestinal microbiota. The findings of this study demonstrated that L. pentosus live bacteria and A. platensis exerted synergistic effects on the growth performance and digestion in shrimp, while cell-free extracts of L. pentosus and A. platensis showed synergistic effects on the immune response and disease resistance of shrimp against V. alginolyticus.