Antioxidant effect of dietary tocopherol and ascorbic acid on growth and survival of Litopenaeus vannamei postlarvae

The nutritional effect of vitamin E in dietsfor Litopenaeus vannamei postlarve (PL19)was investigated. Four formulated diets withdifferent combinations of -tocopherylacetate (-TA), ascorbic acid (AA) andhighly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) weretested, using four replicates.No significant differences in survival wereobserved among treatments after 34 days offeeding. However, shrimp fed with a dietcontaining 2% fish oil (low n-3 HUFA content),200 mg.kg^–1 -TA and100 mg.kg^–1 AA (diet H/E/C) showedsignificantly better growth than those fed adiet supplemented with 5% fish oil (high n-3HUFA content), 200 mg.kg^–1 -TA and100 mg.kg^–1 AA (diet H+/E/C). Shrimp fedwith a diet containing 5% fish oil,900 mg.kg^–1 -TA and100 mg.kg^–1 AA (diet H+/E+/C) showed a significantly higher tissue level of n-6 PUFAthan postlarvae fed diet H+/E/C. No definiteconclusion could be drawn about a possibleinteraction between -TA and AA, since acomparison of the diet containing 5% fish oil,200 mg.kg^–1 -TA and700 mg.kg^–1 AA (H+/E+/C+) and the dietH+/E/C did not show any significant differencesin any of the measured parameters. Theantioxidative status of the shrimp tissue(measured by means of the thiobarbituric acid(TBA) assay and expressed as nM malonaldehyde(MA) per gramme dry weight) was equal for alltreatments. Nevertheless, there was a slightlylower MA value with the diet H+/E/C+,indicating that AA may be an effectiveantioxidant in the aqueous phase and at thewater/lipid interface of the tissue. The tissuelevels of -T and AA were highlydependent on the amounts in diets and nocorrelation between -T and AAincorporation could be observed.